Changes to the Story Part 2
by underwriter12
Summary: My version of season 4 and building the relationship between Raven and Beastboy from Birthmark to The End. Mix of a crossover with a famous movie monster towards the end.
1. Birthmark

PROLOGUE

(Opening shot: the full moon, partially obscured by clouds in the night sky. Tilt down to an offshore oil rig-the same one that served as the Titans' prison in "Mad Mod"-then cut to a close-up of its storage tanks. On the next line, tilt down to frame a piece of apparatus that consists of an enormous glowing sphere flanked by a pair of electrodes. Current crackles up and down as a man in a form-fitting black suit stands up into view. It is Dr. Light, but he has made a few tweaks to his outfit since his last go-round in "Nevermore"-thick armored gloves, each with a light set in its back, reinforcing chest/shoulder plates, cables connecting him to the setup.)

Dr. Light: Once I've drained the energy from fifty thousand barrels of oil- (hands glowing brilliantly) -I'll flood the city in never-ending daylight!

(The gloves fizzle out as the cables are yanked loose under Raven's control.)

Dr. Light: Huh?

(Two of Robin's birdarangs hiss toward him; he leaps clear just in time and they slice into the base of his device. Before he can get his feet planted on the glowing sphere, a shot from Cyborg's sonic cannon blasts it into dust. Then a lineup of electrical bolts charged towards him through the smoke. As the dust settled, he finds all five Titans gathered on a lower platform, ready to mix it up with him one more time.)

Beast Boy: You know, Doc, for somebody obsessed with illumination, you ain't so bright. (Pan to Raven.)

Raven: Next time you're looking to steal something, you might want to pick a target we can't see from our living room.

(On the end of this, she steps o.c. and the camera zooms in on Titans Tower, which stands in the distance behind her-the place is literally within sight of home sweet home. Dr. Light's face goes slack in an instant as he realizes his tactical boo-boo.)

Dr. Light: Oh. Well, um...

(He regains his nerve and fires a pair of blinding blasts from his hands, forcing the group to scatter in all directions. They explode upon impact with the deck plates.)

Cyborg: That's a real pretty light show- (breaking out cannon) -but sound packs a bigger punch!

(On the end of this, cut back to Dr. Light, who creates a bright barrier to stop the burst that comes his way. Once it has been deflected, he hurls back a fierce shot; Cyborg has time for one panicked yell, and in a long shot of the smoking platform, he is blasted off and arcs screaming into the water. Back to the battle zone, where Starfire moves in, zigzagging to avoid the shots that flash toward her. A steep climb carries her up past his ledge, whereupon she retaliates with a merciless starbolt salvo that leaves the screen full of smoke. It dissipates to show the target intact within a hemispherical shield, which he takes down with a grin before firing a huge beam from the light bulb on his chest. The Tamaranean takes it in the mush and drops screaming to the platform as Robin and Beast Boy watch from their hiding places.)

Robin: We need to draw his fire.

Beast Boy: Ok. (Shoot a small lightning bolt at Dr. Light's butt as he yelps.) That good enough?

(His taunting gives way to hesitate and a split-second change into a vampire bat, allowing him to flap away from the blasts that flash down. Dr. Light lets off a cry of his own, tries to cover his head, and shoots again-and Robin takes advantage of the distraction to move in with his fighting staff. A few swings put the walking floodlight off balance for a moment, but he quickly produces a glowing whip and starts to crack away, breaking the staff in two. Robin throws the pieces aside and backs up before Dr. Light's offensive until he reaches the end of the ledge; he then leaps overhead, kicks the man in the back, and heads back the way he came.)

(Dr. Light straightens up to fire again, but emits a frightened cry and jumps out of the way just in time to avoid a dinosaur tail crashing down. Pull back as he goes flying through the air; the appendage belongs to Beast Boy, now a stegosaurus. The leap carries Dr. Light down to the main platform, where he flops dazedly onto his face. Pan slightly as the two boys and Starfire jump/fly down here; Beast Boy is back in human form.)

Dr. Light: (standing up, rounding on them angrily) No one defeats Dr. Light! No one-

(A swirl of black starts to form behind him; his tirade gives way to a scared little noise as he turns toward it. Tilt up slightly to frame the entire shape, which resolves into Raven-impossibly tall and with a forest of tentacles snaking out from beneath her cloak, as when she blew her cool at the start of "Nevermore.")

Raven: Remember me?

(The color drains from his face, indicating that he does indeed have a very clear memory of his first run-in with this particular Titan. She towers impassively over him and withdraws all the tentacles as he turns to the others.)

Dr. Light: I'd like to go to jail now, please.

(Starfire applauds both the defeat and the restraint Raven has exercised this time around, and Cyborg climbs up over the side and spits out a mouthful of Jump City Bay. A look at his forearm panel brings a huge grin to his face.)

Cyborg: All right! The butt-kicking's over and it's almost midnight! (Sight gag: his eyes briefly become milk-streaming donuts.) Time for donuts! Yeah!

(Hearts float up around him. As Robin and Starfire escort Dr. Light away, Raven-back to normal size-turns toward home.)

Raven: I'll see you back at the Tower. (All others stop.)

Robin: But, Raven...

Starfire: You do not wish to enjoy the nuts of dough? It is like eating sweet tiny wheels.

Raven: I just want to get home before tomorrow comes. (She takes off)

Beast Boy: Wonder what's with her?

(Cut to a long shot of the half-wrecked platform and tilt down through the water. The camera passes briefly into blackness as it moves through the rock of the bay floor then reaches a deep, dry cavern and stops. Zoom in slowly toward its back wall and dissolve to a patch farther along. The zoom continues for a moment and stops as the entire place starts to rumble; after a couple of seconds, an armored hand breaks the surface and light pours up around it. Long shot of the area, radiance and smoke boiling up from below the surface, then back to the spot as the figure emerges fully. The face-hidden behind a black/red-orange steel mask with only one eyehole, the left-is that of the one and only Deathstroke. He appears just as cool and fresh as the day Terra gave him a boiling-lava shower in Part Two of "Aftershock.")

Deathstroke: It has begun.

(Snap to black.)

Act One

(Opening shot: the exterior of the Tower, the camera pointing up from its base toward the upper stories. The building stands dark and silent under the darkened, cloudy sky. Cut to a long shot of the door to Raven's room, zooming in slowly, then dissolve to a zoom inside that shows her sitting on the edge of her bed. The only sound here is the slow ticking of a clock; dissolve to it, an old wind-up alarm in her hands that shows the time as a few seconds before 6: 00. She eyes it worriedly enough to screw up the sleep of people three miles away.)

(As those last seconds tick away, cut back and forth between the clock face and her own. Once the sweep hand hits 12, she flops onto her back.)

Raven: Six PM. Just six more hours and it'll be over. Six more-

(It is the evening after the battle with Dr. Light, then. A loud knock at the door startles a gasp out of her and gets her standing up.)

Raven: Hello?

(She crosses to the door; cut to the hall as it slides open and she peeks out carefully. Nothing stirring anywhere in this stretch, so she moves out for a look around. Passing a flight of stairs, then moving down another passage, then reaching the top of the stairs that lead to the operations center, she is greeted by nothing but darkness and silence. Snap to black, which resolves into a head-on view of her as its door slides open to show her here, then cut to her perspective and pan slowly across the facility. Dead quiet and dark here as well; cut back to her briefly, then to her perspective again as all the lights suddenly blaze up. The other four Titans pop up, a "Happy Birthday" banner unfurling from the ceiling amid a shower of confetti and balloons.)

Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Starfire: SURPRISE!

(It certainly is; back to Raven, who screams with enough fear to make her hair stand on end and then drops out of sight.)

Cyborg: Um...Raven? (All deflate.)

Starfire: It is merely us, your friends, with warm wishes for the day of your birth.

Beast: I told you we shouldn't have done a surprise party.

(A circle of black energy forms just behind Beast Boy's feet and grows into the birthday girl, who is anything but pleased at the surprise bash. The sudden reentry sets him screaming and running.)

Raven: How did you know it was my birthday?

Beast Boy: (grinning) Um...'member last night how you made that big deal about tomorrow? Well, we started wondering what tomorrow was, and I looked up in the files of the titan's bio's and it just so happened that it said, that your birthday was today.

Starfire: (turning right side up) And we have been preparing your celebration ever since. (Beast Boy walks up to Raven.)

Beast Boy: We put up tons of decorations. (Cyborg pops up with a covered dish.)

Cyborg: I baked my famous eight-layer cake with three kinds of frosting.

(He yanks away the cover on this line; the cake expands upward to its full height, complete with candles and enough icing to make good on his description. Starfire whips over.)

Starfire: And I have assembled for you a traditional Tamaranean throknar. (She holds up on a pillow...) The crown of meat!

(It is pushed into Raven's face; Beast Boy beams at the offering, vegetarian though he might be, but she reacts as if it were a half-rotted corpse.)

Robin: (uncertainly) I hope this is okay. We just-

Raven: (icily) No. It's not. (Her perspective of them.) Look. I really appreciate what you're trying to do here... (Back to her.) ...but I'm not interested.

(She wheels toward the door, but Starfire is there to try and stop her.)

Starfire: But...there will be music and the iced cream, and a strange game involving pins and the behind of a donkey.

(Each item pops up as she names it-she is referring, of course, to Pin the Tail on the Donkey. They vanish as Cyborg joins in.)

Cyborg: We got a pinata shaped like Beast Boy. (He holds it up as he says this.) You know you want to smack it.

Beast: Excuse me?

Raven: I said no. (Pull back slightly; Beast Boy sidles up.)

Beast Boy: Come on, Raven. I know you hate fun, but it's your birthday. It's special. (Close-up of the back of her head; he continues o.c.) You can't let this day end without-

Raven: (whirling around, eyes blazing) NO!

(A burst of her powers pops all the balloons, sends the banner to the floor in shreds, and turns all the refreshments to mush. Beast Boy is left staring dissappointed, with a couple of layers of Cyborg's cake stuck to his head. Without another word, Raven shoulders roughly past Starfire and the cook and leaves the operations center. None of the others can think of any proper words for some moments.)

Cyborg: I told you a surprise party was a bad idea.

Beast: (annoyed, passing him) Give it a break.

(Cut to the top of the stairs; Raven hurries away from the camera as the door opens o.c. and light streams out.)

Beast: (from o.c.) Raven! (It closes; he runs into view.) What's was that about?

(Profile close-up of the worried gray face, seen from nose to shoulders.)

Raven: I just don't like parties. (Pull back to frame both; slow pan.)

Beast: That's not why, there's more to up. I can tell. We have a bond, remember? I've been in your mind, just let me back in.

(He is referring to the time he and Cyborg got trapped in Raven's hand mirror.)

Raven: Beast Boy, you've got to know me better than anyone. You should know there are other places in my mind where you can't go- (Extreme close-up of her eyes.) -where no one should ever go. (Pull back.)

Beast: I'm willing to give it a try if you'll-

Raven: I can't.

Beast: Please Raven, tell me what's going on.

Raven: Just trust me. If you knew anything about the day of my birth... (walking off) ...you'd know there's nothing to celebrate.

(Dissolve to a close-up of her alarm clock and pull back slowly; it is now a minute or so before 9: 00. Back in her room, she eyes it impatiently and taps one knee against the mattress of her bed. The second hand makes its way past 12, marking the top of the hour.)

Raven: Can't this thing go any faster? (groaning) I just want this day to be over! (calming down) Relax...only a few hours to go...it might not even happen. Focus...meditate... (Cut to the clock; she continues o.c.) ...it'll be midnight before you know it.

(Pull back to a slow pan across the bed; she now floats a foot or so above it and has composed herself for meditation. The clock rises to eye level.)

Raven: (chanting) Azarath Metrion Zinthos... (Close-up; the camera tracks around her head in a circle.) Azarath Metrion Zinthos... (Zoom in on her face.) Aza-

(She breaks off with a small cough; pull back as she hacks a bit louder and opens her eyes. A low rumbling has started, and flames erupt all around her as she gags and clutches at her throat. When the initial burst clears, the entire room has caught fire, leaving her completely hemmed in on the bed. Slow pan across the area; a deep, gravelly voice begins to speak.)

Voice: What you have concealed, you shall become. You have no other choice. Your destiny will be fulfilled.

(Embers drop from the ceiling and set the blankets ablaze in rivulets of fire that snake quickly from edge to edge. She stares in mute terror, and the camera cuts to an overhead view of the burning bed; the flames have formed a design that looks something like a stylized letter S. On the next line, pull back to show Raven now floating well above this.)

Voice: The portal must be opened! (She gasps.)

Raven: NOOOOO!

(A great flash, and the room is exactly as it was before this cataclysm began. She and the clock are back on the bed, and she heaves for breath as if she has just run the Boston Marathon five times in succession. When she looks up, the camera cuts to her perspective and pans slowly to one corner before pulling back to a long shot of the bed. Dead silence once again; in close-up, she is sweating buckets-this vision or hallucination has truly shaken her from top to toe. A loud knock at the door kicks her out of this paralysis very quickly; cut to Beast Boy outside as it opens.)

Beast: You ok?

(The emergency alarm and red flashers go off. Cut to a close-up of her brooch, which also starts flashing in response, and tilt up to her face.)

Raven: Trouble!

(Cut to the exterior of a compound of buildings, zooming in slowly, then to the upper reaches of a machine room inside. On the next line, tilt down to an overhead shot of the floor, with the Titans visible as small specks at the far end. Rows of pistons cycle at left and right; the "floor" is a network of catwalks, below which many levels of piping can be seen.)

Cyborg: So, who's the bad guy du jour? Gizmo? Mad Mod? (Close-up of the group.) Killer Moth?

Starfire: The report simply stated there was an intruder. (Cut to Robin behind beastboy.)

Robin: Well, whoever it is, we have to stop them, whoever it is.

(He never finishes the sentence, as he runs into the back of Beast Boy, who has stopped dead in his track.)

Beast Boy: You've gotta be kidding me.

(Robin looks what Beast Boy was looking at. Cut to a close-up of one of Slade's boots on an elevated platform and tilt up slowly. His face is hidden by shadow, and his other foot is perched on the railing.)

DeathStroke: It's been a long time, hasn't it, Titans? A month? A year? A millennium? (turning toward light) Far too long for my tastes, anyway. I was beginning to think I'd never see your smiling faces again.

(On the end of this, pull back to show his perch at the opposite end of the machine room from their position. Close-up of them, panning slowly across from Starfire toward Cyborg.)

Cyborg: (from o.c.) You...how did you survive?

Beast: I was afraid I'd never see your pretty face again but what a miracle, you've come back.

(On Slade's forehead, a glowing mark appears-a small copy of the design that traced itself onto Raven's bed during her vision.)

Slade: (chuckling) That's precious, Logan. (Extreme close-up of his eye.) But I didn't come back for you.

(Pull back. His hands are now flaming, and with a feral yell he sends a thick snake of fire out toward the Titans. All scatter before it; the thing bends up from the floor, and as Raven gains a bit of altitude, she finds it headed straight for her. Cut to a close-up of her hooded face, the glare fully illuminating every square inch and casting red reflections into her eyes, and fade to black.)

Act Two

(Opening shot: the fire snake lashing up toward Raven, whose red-flickering eyes widen to the point of being ready to pop out of their sockets. With less than a second to spare before it strikes, she conjures up her "soul self" and escapes through the wall. Elsewhere, Starfire carries Robin away and Cyborg races across the floor to stay ahead of Slade's blast. He jumps clear of the next one and goes over the railing near one row of giant pistons; cut to the armored hands and pan to Slade as he lets up and speaks.)

Slade: Ever have one of those days where you just feel happy to be alive?

(He warms up again and targets Beast Boy, flitting nearby as an eagle. Tilt down to floor level, where the changeling drops down in human form and Raven rises from the catwalks.)

Beast Boy: What the..?!

Cyborg: Since when can Slade do that?

(One boot hits the railing; pull back to frame its partner balanced here as well and their owner ready to do his flamethrower impression again. He takes a high, spinning leap and comes down to floor level in a crouch.)

Robin: Not sure, but he won't be doing it for long. Titans! Go!

(Beast Boy becomes a velociraptor as the others rush ahead. First to attack are Cyborg and Starfire, who unleash a blitzkrieg barrage with their respective weapons; Slade, however, merely creates a shield of fire to protect himself and vaults back up to his platform. As he stands there, imperturbable as ever with arms folded, Robin throws a handful of discs across the floor. These freeze the conflagration and its creator solid on impact, the ice rapidly spreading upward to cover Slade's head. The Boy Wonder crouches low, ready to go again if needed-and it is needed as soon as the masked criminal shatters the layer of frost away from his body.)

(He jumps down and finds Raven rising to meet his challenge; she brings the ice fragments under her control, then projects the deadly shards straight at him. A few deft leaps and sidesteps keep him from being skewered, but as soon as he gets clear, Beast Boy jumps down from above as a gorilla to have a bash at him. Slade slides backward out of his reach; now Starfire moves in, both hands blazing, and he quickly throws up a shield. It protects him, but the hits push him backward a good distance.)

(When Slade has regained his balance, he hurls a fireball up at Starfire; now she tries to create a starbolt barrier, but his shot overpowers it and she is blasted down. Behind him, Cyborg has moved near the shaft of one wall piston. He gets the best grip he can and manages to tear the entire thing loose from its moorings, intending to knock the enemy out of the park with it. The weighted end comes around in a thundering arc, dead on target-but Slade merely creates a layer of fire on his body for a moment and lets this burn cleanly through the makeshift club. Close-up of Cyborg, his mind completely blown by this exhibition.)

Cyborg: Whoa! (Pull back to frame Slade.)

Slade: "Whoa"? That's it? No clever comment? (Cut to Cyborg; he continues o.c.) I was looking forward to one of your pathetic combacks.

(Needled in just the wrong place, the big man drops the remains of the piston and charges. Slade ducks underneath his punch and raises one hand, forefinger poised behind thumb as if ready to flick something away. It stops just short of Cyborg's face, a spark of fire flashes from the fingertips, and the flick comes with enough force and heat to throw him backward. Here comes Raven, just in time for Cyborg to plow into her; above them, Beast Boy swoops down as a hawk and zeroes in on Slade. A few nimble jumps carry the target up over the pistons and onto a high catwalk, and a moment later the Titan is up there and reverting to human form. His next bound takes him far along its length, where he comes down as a triceratops. What Slade does next is to touch one set of knuckles to the planks, sending traces of fire across its width and toward the green behemoth. A second later, the section beneath Beast Boy's feet collapses, weakened by the fire, and drops him toward the floor. As rubble thunders down all around, he resumes human form, then becomes a vampire bat and flaps away.)

(Behind Slade, Robin swings onto the intact end of the catwalk and starts slinging discs. They detonate everywhere but fall short of the fleeing villain, and Robin charges through the smoke with his staff at the ready. The pursuit carries him into a forest of turning gears; he hops among them but cannot catch sight of Slade right away. Finally, he gets an eyeful-the man is riding up on a slowly rotating gear, the camera tilting slowly up as he rises. In one hand is his own fighting staff, close-up, panning along the length as it flares up, then pull back for his savage yell and jump. Robin backs up on the giant metal teeth to keep from getting his skull cracked or cooked, and the two spar for a moment before one hit burns through the young man's weapon. He eyes one smoldering, half-melted piece as Slade steps unflappably along the gear's teeth.)

Slade: Take my word for it, Robin. (Extreme close-up; he raises his staff close.) You shouldn't play with fire.

(Pull back. One fierce roundhouse sends Robin, glowing and smoking, down to a distant horizontally-mounted gear.)

Slade: It really has been nice seeing all of you again.

(He looks to one side. Cut to just behind him and zoom in on the floor catwalks, where he has focused his attention on Cyborg and Raven; the former is out cold, the latter on her feet. Close-up of her.)

Raven: I just want this day to end!

Slade: (jumping down to her) I think we both know this day is far from over.

(She stares uncomprehendingly up at his concealed face.)

Slade: Hello, birthday girl. Ready for your present?

(He has come for her, then. She gathers her powers in one hand and projects a huge black claw that seizes him and carries him high over the machine room. It smashes him into a spot high on one wall; she flies up to survey the damage and sighs with relief upon seeing all the smoke.)

Slade: (emerging from haze) I have a message for you.

(She gets ready to let him have it again, but five steel-clad fingers lock around her left wrist and startle her out of it. White light flashes around her straining face, red light burns steadily around his, and the she stands before him, unable to move due to the blinding pain caused by his iron grip. Finally he lets go, and she tumbles down to land on a gear wheel. As she sits up and looks herself over, her eyes go wide at the realization that her sleeve has been torn. Behind her, Slade floats in midair, wreathed in crackling blue-white sparks. Cut to her perspective of the left hand, tilting down a bit to frame the exposed forearm-whose skin now sports a glowing red mark identical to the one on Slade's forehead.)

(Cut to him, illuminated by both this crimson aura and a new shower of sparks.)

Slade: (deliberately) It has begun.

(The energy flashes all over the room, blowing out machines in clouds of smoke; some of it flows through his outstretched hand, then hits the shaft of a piston and snaps it. As Cyborg comes to, he has to back up very quickly to avoid the falling debris. More explosions rip through the rest of the stilled shafts and drop the huge gears free from their elevated mountings near where Robin has lighted. On the floor catwalks, Beast Boy has resumed human form and is still badly dazed by his hard landing; Starfire sweeps past, pulling him toward the exit, and Cyborg cuts out after them. Robin swings down a second later as the framework under his feet stars to blow apart.)

(While the four flee for their lives, flames boil up from the levels beneath the floor and the wall pistons tumble like rows of pine trees. A terrific blast brings down more of the gears and their framework; one colossal wheel slams down and rolls after Robin, whose feet are already doing triple time toward the door. The catwalk buckles under the vast weight, leaving him on a slope too steep to climb, and he stares bug-eyed toward the advancing shadow. Raven watches, horrified, from her vantage point among the few intact gears for a second or two and then finds her voice.)

Raven: STOP!

(A black wave radiates out from her body and washes over the entire machine room; cut here and there as it passes, the lights dimming and the tumult slowing to a dead stop. When she looks up, totally bewildered, she finds that the place has become a full-scale freeze frame-this is an exercise of her powers that we have never seen. Cut to a slow pan at ground level: Starfire flying out, Beast Boy partway through a transformation, Cyborg running like mad-then stop on the huge rolling gear and zoom in. Close-up of its teeth, tilting slowly down toward to frame Robin, who has fallen onto his back and will surely be flattened if time gets itself sorted out.)

(Raven gasps in shock and looks around the frozen tableau, her arms wrapped around her body as if for warmth. Her eyes stop on the levitating Slade, plastered back first against a wall with arms spread wide and head tilted upward. Close-up of her.)

Raven: How did I-

Slade: (from o.c.) You might be able to stop time, birthday girl- (Cut to him.) -but you can't stop me. (Unfreezing, he glows red.) You can't stop any of it, really.

(Back to her; she starts to retreat slowly.)

Slade: (from o.c.) I have to say, Raven, when I found out the truth, I was very impressed. (Back to him; he walks in midair and gestures rubble away.) All this time, I had no idea. The power lurking inside you. The glorious destiny that awaits. It's always the quiet ones, isn't it?

(Raven claps both hands to her head and groans as if trying to tear this experience out of her mind through her scalp. As Slade continues, she runs in search of a place to hide.)

Slade: But honestly, did you think you could just blow out the candles and wish it all away?

(A support girder passes near the camera; behind it, the view changes to show her running up a collapsed beam and stopping at its elevated end.)

Slade: (from o.c.) Today is the day it begins.

(He steps leisurely after her on the end of this line.)

Slade: You've known this all your life. (leaning into her face) It is going to happen. And no matter what you wish- (She turns away.) -no matter where you go, no matter how you squirm- (Extreme close-up of his eye.) -there is nothing you can do to stop it.

(Pull back. She swivels her head to face him, her eyes flaring white, and passes through the wall that has blocked her path. She emerges from the opposite surface, having assumed the form of her "soul self," and takes flight. As she gains altitude, she resumes her normal appearance and casts an eye over the motionless tumult at ground level. Down she goes, stopping by Beast Boy; extreme close-up of his chest as she places a hand on it. Energy washes over the dimly lit Titan, and the camera pulls back as his normal color and motion resume. He gasps and looks up at her.)

Beast: Raven?

(Both turn their attention briefly to Slade, who has not left his spot near the wall Raven traversed, and are then carried away in a black burst. Cut to a street in Jump City; the light here has assumed that same dim tinge, indicating that her time-stopping has worked on a very large scale indeed. Her "soul self" rises from the pavement and glides through the urban still life, and Beast Boy is ejected to the street when it has moved a safe distance from the underground machine room. Raven sorts herself out a moment later and eyes him ruefully as he les prone, gasping for breath. A cathedral stands at the end of the block.)

Beast: What is going on? (He stands.) How is Slade back? Where did he get those powers? How did you stop time?

(Dissolve to a longer shot of the pair, pulling back down the street a bit. Several birds have been caught in mid-flight, their wings visible only as high-speed blurs. A pan across the area reveals people frozen in the middle of their daily business and cars' arrested momentum. From here, cut to a football hanging in air and tilt down to show a game in progress at a stadium; players form a tableau of rushing, blocking, and tackling on the gridiron. Back to Raven.)

Raven: I... I'm not sure.

(She raises her torn left sleeve and sees the luminescent rune on her forearm fade out.)

Raven: I never wanted this day to come. And when it did, I just wanted it to stop. (Long shot.) I guess I got my wish.

Beast: What is happening? (Back to them; Raven looks briefly to the rooftops.)

Raven: It's my birthday.

(A small black figure appears at one edge and dives toward her; it resolves into Slade once he has come close enough to the camera. She takes a few steps back toward Beast Boy as their foe lands.)

Beast: Go, I'll hold him off.

(She does so. Beast moves in to put himself between her and Slade, who just eyes him as if his presence is of no import whatsoever. The animal marches up to Deathstroke with electric full hands and delivers series of punches that rock the steel-masked head back and forth like a speed bag; the last one sends him sliding far down the block. Despite the ferocity of this assault, Slade is able to straighten up-but his head is twisted at an impossible angle on his neck. He slowly works it back into proper alignment, the sound of crackling vertebrae making itself quite clear; extreme close-up of his tightly closed eye, which reopens and gazes levelly ahead.)

(Cut to between his legs and zoom in on Beast, who stares with an unsure look of…)

Beast: Is that supposed to scare me?

(Around Slade's feet, two tongues of flame erupt and entwine into a huge fireball that rockets toward Beast Boy. Beast stops it with a wall of electrical circuits but once it goes away, in comes another It gets him bang in the face; cut to the end of the block opposite the cathedral, where his yell of pain is heard and a car is blasted into the intersection. Raven catches sight of this and flies in to help, only to find a solid sheet of flame blocking the approach to the place of worship. Slade steps easily out of the inferno.)

Slade: I have a message for you-and I will deliver it, whether you like it or not.

(Cut to a close-up of the panicked Titan, backing up slowly, on the end of this. Her fear gives way to rage in a twinkling, and she raises her hands to bring a loop of sewer pipe up from underground to snare him.)

Slade: Skies will burn. (He breaks free.) Flesh will become stone.

(Cut to her; she levitates mailboxes and parking meters and throws them at him.)

Slade: (from o.c.) The sun will set on your world- (Back to him; a box smashes harmlessly against his body.) -never to rise again.

(His form turns to pure flame and explodes in all directions, wiping out the screen for a second. When it clears, the camera quickly tracks in a circle around Raven, whose eyes dart up and down the street as she tries to figure out where Slade went. The movement stops when he rematerializes behind her; she turns to him with a gasp, and he seizes both upper arms in an unbreakable hold. As in the machine room, white light flashes around the gray face, drawn in a sudden, silent contortion as if she were being electrocuted, and she is hurled to the street on her back. When she starts to rise, she is shocked to find that the fabric of her outfit has torn away where he touched it; she hastily covers the exposed skin, which now displays red marks.)

Slade: Time won't wait forever. You can't run away from who you are.

o.c Beast: Doesn't mean she can't try.

(Cut to Beast Boy with a hand cannon out of electrical currents he produces. He fires as it launches Deathstroke into the building down the street. As he crashes through the wall Beast uses his dark powers to cause the building to collapse on Deathstroke.)

(Raven takes Beast by the hand as the run out of the scene. After searching, she sets her eyes on the cathedral and runs to it as the flaming chaos that fills the street near it.)

(Cut to inside the structure, the camera pointing out through a high stained-glass window, and pull back. Tilt down to an overhead view of the double doors, which swing open to show the two Titans on the threshold; as they slowly move into the silent expanse, the doors slam to behind them. Cut to the windows at one side of the sanctuary and pan to bring them into view, walking up the center aisle. About halfway to the altar, Beastboy can go no further and collapses on his knees to the floor to regain his energy, dragging Raven down as deadweight. Camera shifts to just behind the rear pew, panning to frame them in the aisle.)

Raven: I shouldn't have dragged you into this. (Close-up.) Any of you. But you're in, and you need to know. (Cut to the high windows; she continues o.c.) I need to tell you. When I was born, they looked into my future.

(Tilt down to frame them on the end of this. As she continues, cut to a close-up of her eyes and forehead and tilt down to her mouth.)

Raven: On this day, my birthday- (Long shot; pull back slowly.) -something is supposed to happen. Something very bad. That's why I-I didn't want to celebrate.

(On the start of the next line, cut to the exterior of the building; Slade's boots step past, his shadow following well behind.)

Raven: (voice over) But just because you don't have a party doesn't mean it's not your birthday. (Inside, Robin groans and stands up.)

Beast: The symbol...on his forehead...what does it mean?

(Behind him, the door is blown in off its hinges and the wearer of said mark stands amid the clearing smoke. He puts his hands together and sweeps them apart, throwing out a sea of fire that sets both heroes tumbling. Beast Boy crashes bent-backed across a pew, while Raven ends up on the floor. Standing up, she looks about and finds the pyromaniac villain crouching by his handiwork; close-up of his face.)

Slade: It's just you and me now, kid.

(Fade to black.)

Act Three

(Opening shot: the full moon hanging low in the light-tinted nighttime sky. The camera points up at it from between buildings and tilts down to frame a flock of motionless birds above an alley. Raven bursts out of a door that gives onto this passage-the cathedral's rear entrance-and beats feet at Slade's jet of fire hisses out after her. He steps out a moment later, taking his time.)

Slade: (lifting burning hand) You're making this much more difficult than this needs to be.

(He throws a fireball that unfolds into a blazing barrier to cut off her escape; she turns back, shielding her face, and finds him ambling up.)

Slade: The message must be delivered.

(Almost without thinking, Raven manifests her "soul self" and flies through the flames. She resumes her usual form on its other side and continues her flight, but Slade is zooming right up after her. Every move she makes, he copies without even a hint of stress or effort, even a thread-the-needle dive that carries both through a stilled busy street. Raven brings several cars up from the curbs and slings them back at her pursuer; he dodges one, smashes the others in two with a string of burning punches, and continues his approach.)

(Several blocks later, he warms up and displays his pyrotechnic abilities in a new way, stretching out two blistering arms that send Raven diving every which way as they grab for her. She machine-guns one of them with black shots, then hits the gas to stay ahead when these do no good. Her course carries her into a narrow alley between two buildings; the fiery arms hit the architecture on either side and dissipate, but Slade charges straight on in. Close-up of him, pulling back to frame her.)

Raven: Azarath Metrion Zinthos!

(As she speaks the words, cut to a ground-level view of the two buildings and tilt up. Her powers extend over the structures and pull them toward each other until their f ades grind together. Now in open air, she stops to look back at the trap she has sprung on Slade-probably the world's biggest trash compactor. Thick dust clouds waft slowly up from the shifted foundations and ruined masonry.)

(She dips her head sadly, thinking now of the destruction caused by her desperate gambit, but is rudely interrupted when the upper stories partially blow out and Slade emerges unscathed. The shock of seeing him roots her to the spot and leaves her wide open for him to get in a flying tackle. Both crash into the roof of the building Robin first burglarized in Part Two of "Apprentice"-circular design, observation deck set a story or two down, walkway leading off from this. As the smoke clears, Raven hustles away from the impact site and Slade stands erect, his masked face showing more single-minded determination than Inspector Javert's in Les Miserables.)

(Cut to just behind the fleeing girl. On the next line, Slade reaches into view, grabbing a handful of cloak, and the camera cuts to him as he rips the whole thing away.)

Slade: What you have concealed, you shall become!

(Back to her. She now lies prone, the back of her outfit split all the way down to her belt, and a pattern of glowing scarlet inscriptions has appeared on the bared skin. With some effort, she turns over to face up at him.)

Slade: You have no other choice. (Her eyes blaze; she swirls up into a charge.)

Raven: No!

(Black energy surrounds her entire body, but evaporates the instant he gets his left fingers locked around her right forearm.)

Slade: The message will be delivered. (She swings with her left; he grabs it too.) Your destiny shall be fulfilled.

(She swiftly makes the connection between his words and the voice that spoke when her room caught fire in

Her face contorted with horror at this realization, the mark on Slade's forehead superimposing itself over the gem on hers, she backs up from the camera and voices a series of tortured groans as white light pours from both eyes. Tilt down to frame the rest of her body; runes have appeared on both legs, and more are exposed on her midsection when the cloth covering it disintegrates. The remnants on one arm tear apart, revealing extended marks there as well, and the camera shifts to a pan across the sky and Slade's face. Sun and moon cycle rapidly through the sky, which darkens and lightens through the passage of many days.)

(As Raven strains against the mastermind's inflexible grip and time continues in fast-forward, her hair lengthens until it is almost to her waist. Finally, she is let go and drops to her knees against the night sky, wrapping her arms around her body as if trying to ward off a soul-freezing chill. She unfolds them after a moment and looks down in shock at the markings that have now covered almost every square inch of her body. The remaining pieces of her black outfit resemble a raggedly cut halter top and briefs, and her wrist guards and bands have gone-but her belt is still askew on her hips.)

(Raven looks up, still horrified; cut to her perspective, panning slowly across the Jump City skyline-or rather, what remains of it. Every building stands in ruins under a blood-red sky, with the sullenly still bay as their backdrop. Stop on the Tower, standing at a crazy angle offshore, and cut to a close-up of its base and tilt up. We are now close enough to see that the bay has filled not with water, but with molten lava, and the Tower has fallen into such disrepair that it ought to be condemned and razed.)

(Cut to a long shot of the building on which Raven and Slade are standing and tilt down to ground level as a large black raven screeches into the sky. Flames lick up from the broken pavement and among the derelict cars and buildings; elsewhere, more of these birds-the four-eyed ones that menaced Beast Boy and Cyborg in "Nevermore"-caw harshly and take flight. Behind the trailing edges of their wings, the view changes to a slow pan across a group of stone statues that depict Cyborg, the fully human Beast Boy, and Starfire. Each is being dragged down by a horde of small creatures with drawn, ghoulish faces and long arms, and a cut/tilt up at the base of a fourth figure shows Robin in the same dire situation. Behind each one, a fragment of the machine room wall still stands erect, suggesting that these are not statues of the Titans, but the Titans themselves-petrified like gargoyles by some unearthly enchantment. Overall, the prediction Slade made near the end of

has been dead on target.)

(From here, cut to another long shot of the building and track slowly around it in a circular path. Behind the trailing edge of a wrecked skyscraper, the view changes to a close-up of Slade. Raven finally gets to her feet.)

Raven: No!

Slade: (moving toward her) Yes. Look at it. Drink it in.

(Cut to behind them and tilt up to frame the ravaged cityscape spread out like a nightmare architect's models.)

Slade: (from o.c.) Behold the world you are destined to create.

(Dissolve to a pan across the skyline. It lasts for some seconds; at the end of it, a towering humanoid silhouette stands up among the once-proud structures. No features can be discerned at this distance except for a pair of antlers that sprout from either side of the head. In extreme close-up, the mouth opens for a thundering roar and the head turns to put its eyes in view-two pairs of them, burning bright red as did those of the demon Trigon in "Nevermore." Raven's father has crossed over into our world, but the horns are a feature not seen on her projection of him during that episode. The tone of the roar matches that of the voice that spoke in her room during

Act One. Back to Raven.)

Raven: No! (hands to head) I won't do it! This is just a vision. This can't be real!

(Slade reaches into view from behind and clasps her upper arms.)

Slade: (from o.c.) This is the future. (He leans in over her shoulder.) Your future. (Long shot; slow pan.) It began the day you were born, and nothing can stop it. (Close-up.) This will come to pass. I will make sure of it. You're going to destroy the world, Raven.

(Pan across an extreme close-up of the two faces.)

Slade: It's written all over your face. (Stop on hers.)

Raven: (eyes wide, blazing) NOOOOOOOOOO!

(Bursts of white light play over her agonized visage during this long scream, and black rings wash up from the roof over her "soul self" as the camera tilts up to frame the yowling winged apparition. It disintegrates into shreds while the sky restores itself to normal night coloration, and the camera tilts down again to show that the time-stopping effect has ended in this area. The buildings are back in order now-her apocalyptic vision has ended.)

(Cut here and there throughout Jump City; at each location, Raven's energy sweeps across the screen and everything is instantly set right. People go about whatever they were doing, completely unaware that anything out of the ordinary has put their lives on hold for a while. A flock of birds scatters past the roof on which Raven and Slade are still standing; she is utterly spent by the night's experience and slumps wearily backward in his arms. Cut to a profile close-up of her midsection and tilt slowly up to the bowed gray head whose unkempt violet strands wave slightly in a chance breeze. During this movement, all the inscriptions on her body fade away. Pan to Slade's face and pull back to just below the roof, the camera pointing up the pair; he releases his grip on her arms and lets her tumble over the edge.)

[Animation goof: In the midsection close-up, Slade's body is not drawn in from the waist down.]

Slade: We'll be in touch. (Close-up.) Oh...and happy birthday.

(The unconscious Titan plummets toward the street below, ready to start a new career as a very interesting piece of roadkill. Before she can hit the blacktop, however, Beast Boy swoops in as a pterodactyl and makes a very neat catch as she lands on his back. He lands on a rooftop, cradling her as gently as an infant child. She groans weakly and starts to come around; the first sight that greets her is the shape shifters face, fixed in a warm smile. Pull back slowly to frame the pair.)

Beast: Let's go home.

(Dissolve to the exterior of the Tower and cut to a close-up of the alarm clock in Raven's room. Sitting on one of the corner bookshelves, it is ticking off the final seconds before 1: 00 AM-a new day has started. Pan to the jagged-edged wall mirror to the sound of snipping scissors; she stands at it and finishes cutting her hair back to its usual length. She has changed into a fresh set of clothes, and she regards her reflection somberly before looking down toward the surface of the dresser set before the mirror. Her perspective of the clipped scraps; she extends her hands into view, palms up, and surveys their unadorned gray surfaces for a moment. Pull back to frame her again; for the third time this episode, a loud knock at the door startles her out of the reverie.)

(Outside, the door slides open and she steps into the hall. No one is here, but a tilt to ground level reveals some cards laid out, each marked with an arrow that points off down the way. Not sure what to make of this, she moves off in this direction and out of sight around a corner. Cut to just inside the closed door of the darkened operations center; it opens to admit her, and she is immediately showered with confetti as the lights blaze up and she shields her eyes. A clamor of party favors and noisemakers is heard.)

(Cut to the "Happy Birthday" banner the other Titans hung up during their first attempt at a surprise party. It has been taped back together and put back in place; tilt down to frame all five. Cyborg has baked a new eight-layer cake, while Beast Boy wears a party hat.)

Beast Boy: Um... (Goes the John Travolta gesture from Pulp Fiction.) ...surprise?

Cyborg: Look. We know you didn't want a party, but after... (Pan to Robin and Starfire; he continues o.c.) ...today...

Starfire: ...we hope that you might reconsider.

Robin: You may not like your birthday, but we're all glad you were born and apart of this team no matter what.

(All with smiles, not noticing the uneasy expressions that have suddenly popped up on the faces of the other three party conspirators. Raven grimaces as if trying to decide which spell will let her pull his appendix out through his ears, then speaks after a long silence.)

Raven: We're going to need ice cream.

(Starfire giggles and the other two boys smile in relief at her mood change.)

Cyborg: You got it, I'll cut the cake! (He heads for the tables.)

Starfire: And I shall fetch the throknar! (She flies to the side door; Raven approaches Beast Boy.)

Beast: You're sure you're okay?

Raven: I will be.

(Behind her, the green joker zips past, his arms loaded with ice cream cartons. Starfire is not far behind, once again carrying that crown of meat on its special pillow.)

Beast: What you told me about your destiny-that bad things are supposed to happen. I'm sorry I couldn't stop it.

Raven: No one could. (Close-up of his chest.)

Beast: (With death glowing in his palm) We're gonna find Slade. (Pull back to frame both.) We'll figure out how he did what he did, and why he was after you. But right now... (putting hands on her shoulders) ...nothing to fear.

(The sound of gobbling draws their attention to the kitchen tables. Robin enjoys some ice cream, Cyborg wears the throknar and holds two plates loaded with cake, and Starfire beams in the middle of it all.)

Beast: You're here with friends. It's over.

(He joins the party, but she stands where she is and raises her hands for another look. Cut to her perspective of the palms and zoom in slowly as red marks appear on both of them, then to a close-up of her face.)

Raven: (to herself) No. This was just the beginning.

(Snap too black, then tilt down into the subterranean cavern from which Slade emerged in the prologue. His silhouette stands at a distance; in close-up, a ring of fire laces up through the stone around his feet, and light shines from down there as he speaks.)

Slade: The first task is complete, Master. (kneeling/bowing) The message has been sent.

(A flaming sign begins to trace itself out on the ceiling; longer shot of Slade, panning slowly across the cavern.)

Slade: The inscriptions are in place. (raising head in close-up) She knows what she must do. (Camera moves to behind him.) The prophecy will be fulfilled.

(Tilt up to the ceiling, where the sign on his forehead has been traced out very large. The next voice tells right away whose mark it is, and who set this plot in motion and gave Slade a new lease on life to help with it.)

Voice of Trigon: And the world of mortals shall soon be ended.

(Fade to black.)


	2. The Prophecy

PROLOGUE

(Opening shot: the machine room Slade set on fire during his face-off with the Titans in "Birthmark." As his implacable form rises at the far end, Raven races up a flight of stairs toward the camera, just before the giant pistons lining the walls start to collapse.)

Slade: It has begun.

Robin: (from o.c.) Freeze!

(The image jumps a bit and goes still as the camera pulls back. What we have just seen is a video clip playing on the window/screen in the operations center of Titans Tower. It is nighttime, and the lights are low here. Shots from other angles fill the rest of the panes; Robin stands before the display, studying it intently.)

Robin: Rewind.

(The click of a remote is heard; cut to a head-on shot of him and Beast Boy, who is sprawled wearily on the couch with remote in hand. Pictures of Slade and the glowing S-mark on his forehead-also Trigon's brand-lie on the coffee table.)

Beast Boy: Rob, we've been looking at this thing all day. I'm telling you, there's nothing else there.

Robin: There has to be. Play it again.

Beast Boy: (groaning covering his eyes) . (Click; Cyborg comes in.)

Robin: Cyborg. Anything? (Close-up of him.)

Cyborg: (picking up one picture) I cross-matched that symbol with every database on the planet.

Robin: (from o.c.) And?

Cyborg: Nothing. (Pull back to frame both.) Whatever it is, it's not from Earth.

Robin: New powers? Cryptic threats? Targeting Raven? (approaching screen) Slade's playing a whole new game.

Beast: "I doubt it."

Robin: " What do you mean?"

Beast: "This doesn't seem like something Slade would be able to pull off even on his own." (He turns to look at the screen with the feeling of uncertainty) "This is something more evil."

(The frozen image of the covered face flickers a bit as he eyes it up and down. Zoom in on the forehead, putting him out of view.)

Robin: (from o.c.) And this symbol is the key. We will find out what it means.

(Dissolve to a close-up of it, chiseled into a patch of rock, and pull back to show this area as a wide, jagged island in a lake of lava. Raven steps up to a ridge on the far shore; in close-up, she is just as pensive and worried as when she had her apocalyptic vision four episodes ago. Behind her, the sky has gone blood-red and Jump City stands in ruins as Slade made it appear. The sound of his voice snaps her out of the reverie.)

Slade: (jumping into view among buildings) Tick-tock, Raven. Time is running out.

Raven: I'm not afraid of you! (He materializes behind her.)

Slade: Silly girl. (moving closer) I'm not the one to be afraid of.

(He continues his advance, forcing her to back up, and the camera shifts to show them on the roof of another smashed structure.)

Slade: You know that.

(Lightning whites out the view; when it clears, she is alone atop the wreckage. Her respite lasts only the fraction of a second before huge fireballs start to rain down from the sky and a terrible, booming, familiar voice speaks up.)

Voice of Trigon: What you have concealed, you shall become!

(Two of the missiles curve in and collide at her position, throwing flames in all directions. Through the inferno, a hemispherical black shield emerges-she has used her powers just in time-and she takes it down as the fire swirls around her.)

Raven: It's a lie! I won't let this happen. I'll find a way. (Slade walks through the fire.)

Slade: Your optimism is really adorable, but you're forgetting one thing, Raven.

(A lick of flame wipes him off the screen and leaves her staring at the ravaged shore and the remains of Titans Tower.)

Voice of Slade: This is what you were born to do.

(Another lick; now the scenery pans across the other Titans, frozen in stone and dragged down by the ghouls in her previous vision.)

Voice of Slade: You were sent here to destroy the Earth.

(Another lick: she finds herself looking across the lava-filled bay at more devastation. From here, cut to a close-up of her. On the next line, the ground goes black and violet waves radiate out from her feet and mirror her image.)

Voice of Trigon: Your destiny will be fulfilled. (His four eyes open on the ground.) The portal must be opened!

(Lightning strikes, fading out to show a close-up of the troubled Titan. She gasps sharply as the camera pulls back to show her floating just above the floor in her room amid stacks of books. Superimposed on her forehead gem is Slade's/Trigon's mark. The past forty-five seconds have been part of a vision achieved during meditation-and from her expression, she would rather have been subjected to every unfriendly spell she knows. She struggles to catch her breath for several more seconds before the view fades to black.)

Act One

(Opening shot: the exterior of the Tower, seen from above roof level. Zoom in slowly and dissolve to Raven's room, near the door; pan to her on the next line, open books floating around her in a circle.)

Raven: It's my destiny. There has to be a way to change it. I know there is! (flipping pages with her powers) I just need a little help finding it.

(A hand gesture shifts all the books to bring another one in front; more pages turn, stopping on a large illustration of that jagged S. She gasps and the camera zooms in on the page, putting her out of view.)

Raven: (from o.c.) No. (Pull back; she grabs the book and the others hit the floor.) This has to be wrong.

(She closes the volume and clutches it to her chest. Knocking is heard from the direction of the door; cut to it.)

Beast: (from outside, through door) Hey...any luck finding the symbol? (She pushes the book under her bed with her powers.)

Raven: No. It's not in any of my books.

(She puts her hood up, hiding the glow on her forehead, just before he opens the door partway to look in.)

Beast: Are you okay? (She moves toward him.) You look a little...well...paler. (Cut to his side.)

Raven: It's nothing. I just haven't been able to meditate lately. (Cut to him; she continues o.c.) That's all. (Zoom in slowly.)

Beast: I know Slade scared you, but we're gonna find out why he was after you. (Back to her.)

Raven: Slade doesn't concern me.

(The alarm and red flashers choose this particular moment to go off.)

Starfire: (over intercom) Friends! Come quickly!

(Beast is off to the common room, but his genuinely worried teammate stands in the doorway as the camera zooms in slightly. Finally, she opens the door the rest of the way and moves down the hall, letting it close behind her. Dissolve to the kitchen, where Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire have gathered at the counter around a large copy of Trigon's mark; the other two join them very shortly. The alarm has stopped.)

Starfire: Cyborg was correct. This symbol is not of the Earth. (Pan across the others; she continues o.c.) And what I have discovered is most disturbing.

(Raven's eyes pop slightly out of fear that her secret has been found out, then shift back to Starfire, who extends a pointer rod. On the next line, tilt down slightly to put the drawing in view; she indicates a spot in the upper left.)

Starfire: Please, give your attention to this quadrant.

(Beast Boy leans in for a closer look. Back to the young lecturer; pull back as the scenery behind her dissolves to an alien landscape under a green twilight sky. One axe-wielding fighter stands ready for battle, while a second rides a huge, rhinoceros-like beast.)

Starfire: In the folklore of the Zargac nomads... (The kitchen again; overhead view.) ...markings such as these were used as a prelude to the Goulding.

(On the second half of this line, everything but the symbol fades to black and the camera pulls back to show it on the back wall of a cavern. Robed Zargac figures hold torches aloft on either side of a flight of steps leading to an altar; behind this sits a very broad one with no robe. Back to the kitchen after the line is finished.)

Beast Boy: Actually...

Starfire: A savage ritual that requires all Zargac warriors to consume vast quantities of bortha worms and...

(During this line, as the green Titan is heard and seen waving to get her attention, the camera cuts back and forth between her and the cavern. A large bucket of the aforementioned worms-green, bulbous, writhing-is set before the Zargac at the altar. The final shot in the sequence is a close-up of the drawing; Beast Boy reaches over, peels up the spot she pointed out, and holds it up in full view.)

Beast Boy: STAR! It's a piece of calzone. (Robin's eyes pop.) Sorry.

(He tosses it over his shoulder, where it is intercepted by Silkie's very neat midair chomp.)

Starfire: (deflated) Oh...never mind.

(Alarm and flashers. Tilt up from the Titans to the window/screen, which shows a map of one part of Jump City; Slade's insignia is displayed next to a glowing spot. Cut to a close-up of the stylized S, then to Robin.)

Robin: Slade.

(Cut to a view of the night sky, the camera angled up between two rows of buildings. A few bits of newspaper blow past n a very forlorn manner before a huge belch of fire rips across the screen, setting off explosions in the upper stories. Tilt down to ground level; more flames roar up from the pavement, and here comes Slade through it all, having had a new bit of fun.)

Slade: I do love my job.

(He wreathes both hands in fire, but before he can do his torch impression again, a sonic cannon blast tears the air and extinguishes him.)

Beast Boy: (from o.c.) Vandalism? For real? (Cut to the Titans, just down the way; Slade's arm is in view.) I expected more out of the terminator.

Slade: (from o.c.) The Teen Titans. Nice of you to drop by- (Back to him.) -but as you can see, I'm right in the middle of something. I'll deal with you in a few minutes.

Beast: How about.(All warm up;as he morphes into a giant python) We'll deal with you now.(In a devilish snake voice)

(Close-up of Slade; pull back.)

Slade: You can't always have what you want, Logan.

(Re-igniting his fists, he bangs them together to open a burning fissure in the pavement that sends all five Titans diving for cover. When they regroup, Beast Boy slithers and smacks Slade 30 feet away.)

Robin: Titans! Split up and take him down!

(They move in again; now Slade leaps from one building to another and does a little high-energy renovation as he goes. Cyborg is brought up short by a red-hot stone column crashing down in his path.)

Cyborg: Doesn't Slade know this whole block is already slated for demolition? (Beast Boy lands on a ledge and resumes human form.)

Beast Boy: Since when did Slade need an excuse to wreck stuff?

(He becomes a leopard and is off as fast as his legs will carry him. The armored pyromaniac, meanwhile, has perched on a rooftop and taken to shooting jets of fire from his hands. After a couple of shots, he dives toward ground level, only to be kicked aside by the swinging Robin after touching down. A stack of oil drums and a wall stop Slade's momentum, whereupon the Boy Wonder leaps in for another go.)

Robin: Why did you come back? (Close-up of Slade; he continues o.c.) Where did you get these powers?

Slade: (pointing at forehead) You want to know about this, don't you? (crossing to Robin; his footprints flare up) How many sleepless nights have you had, trying to uncover its secret? Well, let me put your mind at ease. It's called the Mark of Scath. And it's about to become very popular.

Robin: What are you planning?

Slade: I'm not planning anything. (drawing the Mark in air, within a fireball) I'm simply providing a valuable public service. (He gestures it upward.) Illumination.

(The ball is propelled forward and erupts into a blazing jet. Robin hurls himself away from its approach just in time to avoid instant barbecuing and finds himself looking up at that expressionless steel mask. Before Slade can finish the job, a starbolt rockets into view and plows him aside; without missing a beat, Starfire moves in with every juiced-up pitch she can think of. None of the shots hits Slade, who easily sidesteps them all and then leaps up past her to land on the boom of a construction crane parked nearby. It breaks under his weight as he bounds nimbly away-leaving a wrecking ball to swing up from the severed end and bash Starfire full in the face.)

(Slade is on the move along a rooftop ledge, but stops short when something green dives past him. After a moment of trying to balance on one foot, he gets himself under control and finds that Beast Boy has become a flying squirrel to harass him. The distraction lasts long enough for Cyborg to train his cannon on the spot from ground level.)

Cyborg: Fire in the hole!

(His shot blows out the patch of ledge under Slade's feet, dropping him to the concrete, but a savage flaming onslaught puts the big man suddenly on the defensive. When he looks up, he sees a shower of rubble thundering toward him from the building struck by Slade's blows. Fade to black as the slabs fill the screen, then snap to a long shot of the masked madman near the smoking impact site. As Slade sets off running, the rodent Beast Boy swoops down and disappears into the pile with a tiny puff of dust. It is followed by a much larger one and his re-emergence as a brontosaurus; the wreckage is flung everywhere by his sudden growth, and Cyborg sits up woozily on his back.)

Cyborg: (as Beast Boy roars) Yeah, you better run!

(Cut to a quick pan across the decrepit blocks and stop in front of a particular building, where Slade touches down from his quick escape. Steel-gloved fists blaze anew, but whatever he has in mind gets put on hold when Raven's "soul self" materializes at the door and resolves back into her usual form.)

Raven: What do you want?

Slade: Only what any messenger wants, Raven. For their message to be heard. (She descends to the steps.) It's time your friends learned the truth. And if you don't tell them, I will.

Raven: Leave them out of this.

Slade: I didn't bring them into this. You did-the day you came into their lives. Tick-tock, Raven. (backing up) Time is running out.

(He is swallowed up in a fiery tornado that erupts from the street; it slices toward Raven, who creates a shield to stop the flames but quickly takes it down again as a lost cause. The maelstrom dies down, leaving her staring n disbelief at a fault that has sealed itself almost perfectly. Cut to Robin, communicator in hand amid the architectural inferno.)

Robin: Titans! (A beam collapses in front of him.) Do you read me? (Cyborg addresses his forearm comm.)

Cyborg: I read you, but I don't see you! (Starfire, in midair, has hers out.)

Starfire: I see you all-and something else.

(Cut to an overhead shot of the area and pull back slowly. Below her, broad swaths of fire trace out the Mark of Scath on a truly grand and terrible scale. Fade to black.)

Act Two

(Opening shot: an overhead view of a single building standing at the center of an empty, burned-out crater hundreds of yards wide. Zoom in.)

Robin: (voice over) Everything in a three-block radius has been destroyed-

(Cut to the front door; this is a library, and the Titans stand at the front door. Beast Boy is back in human form.)

Robin: -except this. Slade left it standing for a reason.

Cyborg: (checking forearm panel) According to the city's master plan, this is the original town library. But it's been abandoned for decades.

Beast Boy: No wonder. This place is a gonna be demolished.

(He kicks at a column, which promptly falls over, scaring a yell out of him and nearly putting him in traction. Tilt quickly up to the sign over the entrance; fresh cracks race up the faade, and most of the stonework crashes down just short of the Titans' location. Dust boils up and clears to show a close-up of the Mark, etched in red on a wall.)

Robin: (from o.c.) The Mark of Scath.

(Pull back. Said wall, exposed by the big-time wipeout, now looms before the Titans above the library doors, and Raven's eyes bug out-the secret she came across in her books is now all the way out in the open.)

Robin: Slade told me the name. (He prepares to head in.)

Raven: (rattled) Wait! (Her perspective of the others.) We shouldn't go in. (Back to her.) It's probably a trap.

Beast Boy: It's also our only lead. We're just have to take the chance.

(At a nod from him, Starfire hauls on the barred doors and manages to force them open. Cut to inside the library, at ceiling level near the domed skylight, and tilt down to floor level as the heroes move in with the help of Cyborg's shoulder flashlight. Bats flutter in the upper reaches of the long-disused facility.)

Beast Boy: You know, even without the creepy librarians, I'm not liking this place.

(During this line, cut to among the stacks; they advance into view among them. The walk brings them to a blank wall at the end of a passage.)

Robin: It's a dead end. (Cyborg puts his flash away.)

Raven: There's nothing here. Can we go now?

(Close-up of her. The hood of her cloak is up, but it does not block out enough light to keep the Mark from appearing, clear as day, right between her eyes. She looks worriedly up at it, it fades out, and the camera pans quickly to Beast Boy by the unlit wall of this dead end. . As if on cue, shafts of white light pierce the gloom, forming a door on which the Mark begins to burn. The whole thing falls away, exposing a passage, and the green goofball jumps backward with a scared little yelp before all lean in closer.)

Beast Boy: Well... a secret passage (to Cyborg) You're the flashlight, your first.

(Out comes the flash to illuminate a flight of steps leading downward; he then breaks with precedent and does as the little guy says. Cut to a close-up of a sculpture that depicts a cloaked, hooded skeleton; the beam plays over it, and the camera pulls back to show it as one of several at the wall of a chamber. Here come the Titans, off the stairs and into this place. Close-up of Robin; pan to Starfire on the next line.)

Starfire: I did not realize your libraries housed such unpleasant sculptures. (The flash is put away.)

Cyborg: (checking forearm panel) They don't. This part of the building is old. I mean, old old. (Overhead view of the boys.) Like before the city was built.

(Pan to Raven, bringing up the rear and just now reaching the bottom of the stairs. Again the Mark pops out on her forehead; this time, the response is a quick spreading of incandescent red runes on the chamber walls-similar to the ones that appeared on her body in "Birthmark." The others can only gape at the emergence, which culminates in the Mark writ large on the far wall facing them. Pair by pair, the empty eyes of the stone figures' skulls flare white and a spirit emerges from each.)

Spirits: The gem was born of evil's fire.

The gem shall be his portal.

He comes to claim.

(Close-up of Raven's feet; tilt up to her face as the marks appear all over her clothing and skin.)

Spirits: (from o.c.) He comes to sire (She gasps and covers herself; cut to the others.)

The end of all things mortal.

Beast Boy: Raven?

(She wraps her cloak even tighter and hustles back up the stairs, stopping to rest only when the underground chamber is well out of sight. Cut to her feet and tilt up to her face; the cloak has fallen open to show those scarlet inscriptions again, and soon she is on the move-but now Beast is coming up fast.)

Beast: Raven!

(She stops short, staring up toward the library with sudden mute fear, and he closes the rest of the gap as the camera cuts to her foot level.)

Beast: What's wrong? (Tilt up; she turns to him.)

Raven: This place...it's...I shouldn't be here. It's all wrong.

Beast: What's going on, Raven? What aren't you telling me? (He advances slowly; she backs up.)

Raven: I can't explain. I just need to leave. (transforming to human "soul self") I can't go back in there. (She disappears through the ceiling.)

Beast: Raven!

(Cut to an image of the spirits, a hologram projected by Cyborg's forearm panel, and pull back as they repeat the previous chant and Starfire speaks. She is eyeing the playback worriedly. The runes on the walls have faded out.)

Starfire: It appears to be some kind of...prophecy.

Cyborg: Whatever it is, it doesn't sound good. (Pan to Beast Boy on the next line.)

Robin: This is real serious evil, even for Slade.

Beast Boy: (from o.c.) Not Slade. (descending stairs) Whoever he's working for.

Starfire: Scath.

Beast: (crossing to them) "The gem shall be his portal." (crossing chamber to inspect Mark chiseled on wall)

Robin: Scath is coming, and this gem is how he gets here. If we're going to stop him, we need to find it and destroy it.

(A sudden, savage kick reduces that particular stone slab to gravel, but Starfire pays it only a moment's notice before looking off elsewhere.)

Starfire: Beast Boy, where is Raven?

Beast: She's not coming.

(He dashes into the total blackness of a passage exposed by his attack on the masonry. Dissolve to Raven's room, the books stacked all over the place as when this whole circus began. Candles light themselves as the door opens and she stands in the hall, surveying the area; the marks on her person have disappeared again. With the help of her powers, she retrieves the book she hid under her bed in

Act One, then clears a wide section of the floor.)

Raven: You might be able to stop me from meditating...

(She raises one hand, causing two flasks filled with sand on a nearby bookshelf to pop their corks and float over to her. The contents pour out in a circle, putting her within.)

Raven: ...but you can't stop me from leaving!

(Candles arrange themselves around the ring and light up as she sits cross-legged. Cut to a close-up of the book in her lap; she places the fingertips of one hand on the cover, and the camera tilts up to her face with eyes closed.)

Raven: (chanting with building intensity) Azarath Metrion Zinthos...Carazon Rakashas Endere...Vaserix Endrien Azarath...Azarath, Azarath!

(During the second part of the incantation, flecks of bluish light begin to pop from the ring of sand and form into a cylindrical barrier that reaches all the way to the ceiling. On the third part, she floats clear of the floor and opens her eyes, which now glow brilliant white, and the camera tilts up to show a newly opened, swirling vortex in the tiles overhead. A few loose scraps of paper then fly past as Raven is pulled up into the portal, and with a blinding flash the sheet of light disintegrates into flickering shreds at floor and ceiling before the portal seals itself.)

(Another flash, and we are looking straight down into an immense circular shaft whose bottom disappears into the complete dark. The walls are lined with a spiral staircase, and a camera shift reveals the other four Titans at the top of it. This is the space Robin uncovered after smashing the carving of the Mark of Scath, and all peer cautiously over the landing's edge.)

Cyborg: So, how far down do you think it goes?

Beast Boy: Only one way to find out.

(He grabs a glow stick and drops it down to see it go all the way down as it fades into darkness not knowing how down it goes.)

Cyborg: (awed) That's far. (He puts the dish away.)

Robin: (heading for stairs) Then we better get started. (Cut to the other three; he continues o.c.) I'm willing to bet that gem is down there. (The others start down.)

Cyborg: Yeah, but what else is down there with it?

(Dissolve to a flow of energy that streams down like a waterfall. After a second or two, Raven pulls into view, flying against its current-the camera is now within the passage she opened with her spell-and wearing the most single-mindedly determined expression she has ever sported up to this point. As she ascends, batlike, screeching apparitions pass her going the other way; when she looks down after them, she finds that the lower end has gone bright red-orange. The spirits disappear into the lurid radiance, which begins to expand so fast that she has to put it in overdrive. The acceleration is barely enough to keep her ahead, though, and flames from the pit lick at her heels; finally she gasps in shock and is swallowed up in the inferno. Fade to black.)

(Fade in to the other Titans on their way down the winding staircase in the measureless underground shaft. A low, distant moaning, as of wind blowing somewhere farther down, brings them up short.)

Robin: Sounds like we've got company.

(As they strain to make out any details of what might be causing the disturbance, a tiny blue spot flares up in the gloom and begins to grow, rising rapidly toward them. Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire cry out in fear, and all four set off again-only to stop with a round of surprised gasps as the specters that passed Raven start to emerge from the steps. They can now be seen in more detail: skeletal, beaked creatures, armed with fearsome bladed weapons, whose bat wings have had their webbing torn away.)

(The four heroes scatter as soon at those keen blades hiss toward them. Robin is first to mount a counterstrike, but his fist merely swishes through the ethereal body with no effect.)

Robin: I can't hit them!

(Another one thumps Cyborg, who nearly goes over the edge and finds himself looking at a horde of these ghastly things.)

Cyborg: But they can hit us!

(A diving tackle sends him into the wall; he opens fire with his cannon, Starfire matches his effort with starbolts, and Beast Boy becomes a kangaroo and kicks through an attacker. The momentum carries him into space, so he becomes a hawk and swoops back up, barely staying ahead of a ghost. Now all four have their hands full, Robin laying about with his fighting staff. He is forced to break off the fight when a knot of spirits begins to chase him up the stairs, but Cyborg sends a cannon shot down to disperse them. What happens next is a double blindside: Beast gets pinned to the wall by ghosts coming up over the edge, while others float up through the stone stairs and do their best to seize Cyborg's legs, forcing a terrified scream from him. The empty eye sockets now glow bright red. He yanks himself away and blasts away with a supremely frustrated roar, wiping out a broad section to cut off the way down.)

Cyborg: Oops.

Beast Boy: That way!

(He makes tracks for the center of the shaft and hurls himself into empty air, whereupon gravity asserts itself forcefully and he is lost from sight. Robin and Starfire trade a very puzzled look-"has this kid gone out of his gourd?"-and follow his lead; the shape-shifter becomes a pterodactyl as he drops. The bionic Titan is left at the precipice, waving his arms angrily as the camera pulls back and down.)

Cyborg: Uh, maybe you didn't get the memo, Robin and I can't fly!

(The spirits certainly can, though, and several of them get in his face to reinforce the point. Within seconds they have boxed him in both upstairs and down-so he takes a deep breath, holds his nose, and goes over the edge after the others. Four Titans hurtle into the abyss with a plethora of murderously angry souls hot on their heels and are buffeted this way and that by their close approach.)

(As Robin tumbles along, he catches sight of the Mark of Scath on a patch of wall and fires a grappling hook, scoring a hit and being yanked back up when the line snaps taut. Here comes Cyborg, with no such help readily available; Starfire gasps, steps on it, and catches him just short of a spectral brigade. The two Titans race back up the shaft. At the location of the Mark, Robin climbs onto the stairs while Beast Boy comes in for a landing and resumes human form. The Boy Wonder hauls on the line he came up on, tearing the Mark's stone free of the wall and exposing an opening beyond. Cut to its other side.)

Robin: Another passage! This way!

(He dives through, Beast Boy goes after him, and Starfire tosses Cyborg in before bringing up the rear-and, right on cue, here come all the ghosts. Now everyone is going flat out down this new passage, but Robin skids to a stop and hurls a disc toward the pursuers. The throw is so low that it scrapes along to the floor; it explodes with terrific force as soon as it stops, and he is off again. As the smoke and glare clear, cut to within yet another new doorway; he enters and the camera pulls back to show the other three Titans looking up in total shock.)

Beast Boy: Damn it...which way is the gem?

(Cut to behind the group and pan slowly across this place. High arched ceilings mark the entrances to several unlit corridors, and a zoom in on the keystone of one of them shows the Mark carved into it.)

Robin: (pointing) Follow the Mark!

(They go in the indicated direction, as do the relentless apparitions; Robin, now in the rear, has to dodge one strike after another or parry with his staff. The other three rush ahead down a flight of stairs and stop at another multi-faceted fork in the road.)

Beast Boy: There's no Mark! (Robin tumbles down and kicks away an attacker.)

Robin: Pick one!

(He is immediately waylaid anew as Beast Boy ponders the dilemma very hard. Close-up of the keystone in one arch, which has an eagle-head carving set in it. After each word of the next line except the first, cut to a similar feature on another arch: a distorted human face, a wolf, a dragon.)

(Beast Boy Frustrated, gives up and picks a random way.)

(Back to him; he points at one of the corridors.)

Beast Boy: This way.

(He charges ahead as the spooks mount a fresh assault and the others retaliate. Cut to just outside the passage he chose; a tiny figure appears with something blue glowing behind it. A close-up reveals this to be Beast Boy, chased by a new detachment of souls.)

Beast Boy: OK NOT THAT WAY!

(He dives back into the junction chamber, letting the spirits fly overhead, and straightens up as the others back up toward him. Cannon and starbolts "pulverize" one enemy after another, but Beast takes no part in the melee; instead he looks up at the dragon keystone.)

Beast: Come on!

(All rush toward it, the four Titans making it in with almost no time to spare. Cut to just inside; the specters give chase, but a large stone slab slides down to cut them off and black out the screen.)

(Fade in to the interior of the tunnel Raven was flying in. The flaming energy has entirely enveloped her and continues to surge upward at an alarming rate, but her powers slice out through the surface as if it were an orange being sectioned. The whole thing finally disintegrates, leaving only the "soul self" that resolves into her normal form, and she zooms on ahead to stop at the upper end of the tunnel. Here she finds herself facing a large circular pattern traced in pink light-arcs and triangles at the center, with runes inscribed around the perimeter. Inner and outer portions rotate slowly in opposite directions.)

(Raven backs up a bit as if working up a head of steam, then charges headlong toward this display. When she is nearly close enough to touch it, a flare of light brings her up short and she strains as if trying to push through a barrier. Close-up of her face, zooming in; the gem on her forehead glows bright red.)

Raven: Let me in!

(A huge flash fills the screen and clears to show Cyborg and Starfire at the door that slammed shut a moment ago. He has his flashlight trained on it, while she inspects the rock mass very closely for a second.)

Starfire: It appears we cannot get out. (He turns off the light.)

Cyborg: Yeah, but at least those things didn't follow us in.

Beast Boy: (from o.c.) Uh, guys?

(Pan a short distance to show him and Robin down the way a bit, at the mouth of a cavern. Close-up of the two boys.)

Beast Boy: You want to see this.

(Pull back into the space; they are standing on a small ledge overlooking the area, and Cyborg joins them while Starfire floats out past the drop-off. The camera then cuts to behind them and pulls back to show exactly what stopped Beast Boy cold: a large stone pillar, topped by a hand with palm upward and fingers splayed, set in the center of a wide open chamber. A shaft of brilliant light shoots upward from the palm, and large arched structures are arranged around the walls.)

Cyborg: I'm getting a serious dj vu vibe here.

Beast Boy: Not only that, but something about this place seems really familiar.

(They are referring to the literal head trip they took into Raven's mind during "Nevermore." Starfire moves closer to one of the wall structures; now it can be seen as a huge copy of the raised hood of Raven's cloak, with a faceless head set within.)

Starfire: Yes. It looks like...Raven.

(Palm level. She lowers Robin safely to the surface, while Beast Boy in pterodactyl form brings Cyborg in and them resumes human form.)

Robin: The gem!

(Close-up of the central area, pulling back. There is only an empty hole at the base of that pencil of light.)

Robin: (from o.c.) It's gone!

(On the next line, tilt up to the fingers of the massive hand. Everyone's favorite masked psychopath is standing casually atop one of the fingers.)

Slade: You must be disappointed.(Beast slowly turns his head to look at his old mentor with a pissed off look.)

Robin: Where's the gem?

Slade: Not here. (He jumps down to them.) But...much closer to you than you think.( Beast pulls out his wrist blades ready for a fight.)

Beast: Who the hell is Scath? Who are you working for!

Slade: Mmm...I'd love to introduce you, but unfortunately you won't be around that long.

(He raises both hands to the foursome and gets them red-hot. The glow blazes up to white, wiping out the entire view, then subsides to show Raven huddled on an expanse of bare rock under a sunny, orange-tinted sky. She looks up after a moment, still half-stunned by the journey she has undertaken, and the camera cuts to a long shot of her position and pulls back slowly. It s a colossal floating monolith, the approximate size of a respectable asteroid, and a sprawling city dotted with many minaret-like structures covers nearly the entire upper surface. At the center of it all is an imposing, broad-based tower.)

Raven: (from surface) Azarath. (Close-up; she gets to her feet.) My last hope.

(She has arrived at the place she used to call home after crashing the intricately designed gate. Fade to black.)

Act Three

(Opening shot: Slade, doing his human-flamethrower act in the subterranean chamber. As Starfire floats clear, the three boys dive over the edge of the huge hand sculpture and land on a small ledge farther down on its supporting pillar. The move gives them only an instant's respite, though; Slade throws himself down that way as well and lands a blow that sends Beast Boy and Cyborg screaming toward the floor. Robin ends up in a backward skid, Starfire pulls in next to him, and together they survey the dust clouds and rubble that marked the crash site. Through the haze, Cyborg emerges with one unconscious green buddy slung over his shoulder. Close-up; he smiles to himself, but a pan to his unoccupied shoulder shows Slade on his way over and wipes that grin off in a hurry.)

Slade: Now, Titans, you're just delaying the inevitable.

(With an easy swing of his arm, he tosses both brawlers aside like rag dolls; next Robin jumps in for a little face time.)

Robin: We're not leaving without that gem!

Slade: You don't understand. You're not leaving at all.

(One fed-up Tamaranean launches herself at his neck, trying for a headlock, but settles for kicking him across the room with enough force to wipe out a decent bit of the stonework. A follow-up eye blast hits home on one of the faceless hooded statues, bringing the head down right on top of Slade, and the four Titans regroup briefly before she closes in to check her work. She looks here and there, then upward with a small gasp, and the camera follows her gaze to show that the seemingly invincible foe has climbed onto the fallen head for another round. A jet of fire from one armored hand drives her to the floor; as she drags herself up with a weary little groan, he jumps down and gets ready to sock her one in the back. Before he can make good, a cannon blast drops him where he stands. Cyborg throws a hard glare at Slade, who again comes up fresh as a daisy and closes in.)

(Both Titans stare in total disbelief for a moment, trying to figure out how on earth one person could survive this much punishment, and Cyborg unleashes a new salvo. Slade avoids every shot with a series of impossibly quick sidesteps, then immediately has to dodge Robin's punches. He ends this bit of the combat by grabbing the Boy Wonder's cape, slamming him into the fallen rock, and throwing him far across the chamber. Now a tremor shakes the floor; Slade looks off to one side, and the camera cuts to the source-Beast Boy, charging as a triceratops. One fireball after another breaks harmlessly against the tough green hide, but he slam of a fist against the floor throws up a fountain of flame that hurls the Titan off his feet. Finding himself squarely in Beast Boy's graceless flight path, Cyborg has just enough time for one gasp before the behemoth crashes down on him.)

(Slade moves toward the impact site, but a starbolt barrage makes him think better of it. The one Titan still on her feet lets him have both barrels; he merely stands his ground, catches one shot, and turns it into a fireball to fling right back at her. Its unearthly glare plays over her stunned, slack-jawed face before she is blasted into the wall and dumped flat. Now Robin struggles to lift his head and seize the birdarang that has fallen loose nearby, but Slade's boot slams down to crush the device.)

Slade: You know, I actually like working for someone else. It lets me be a little more hands-on.

(On the last word, he extends one palm toward Robin and warms it up, filling the screen with its red glare. From here, fade in to a long shot of Azarath, zooming in slowly, then dissolve to a slow pan across the intersection of two of its streets. Another such transition shows a different patch of road under an overhead walkway. Not a living person has been seen in either of these shots; finally Raven walks into view.)

Raven: (echoing) Hello?

(She makes her way along the thoroughfares, her steps ringing in the silence, and eyes her reflection in a red plate-glass window at ground level. Finally she stops to think things over.)

Raven: Not like I expected a parade, but...

(A dove flies past just in front of her; letting the sentence drop, she sets off after it and quickens her pace. After a few turns through the deserted streets, she stops to see where it might be headed next. Cut to the base of a tower and tilt up to follow the dove toward its peak; emblazoned on the front is a huge gold bird with wings spread toward the sky. On a high balcony, the creature lights on the hand of a figure clad in a white cloak whose hood is up. A turn of the head reveals the melancholy face within-a woman's, with hair colored and styled like Raven's and a gem set in the same position on the forehead. This is Arella, her human mother.)

(Stroking the dove's feathers gently, Arella moves away without a word; Raven flies up toward the balcony. When the woman speaks, her tone of voice is a perfect match for her gloom-saturated countenance.)

Raven: Arella! (She gains the peak; Arella is about to go inside.) No, wait! I've come back. Mother, please help me.

Arella: You always had a home here, my child. (looking toward Raven) But help we could not give. (A flutter of doves.)

Raven: The prophecy...it's happening. (holding up her book) You have to tell me how to stop it.

Arella: Nothing could be done. The promise of your birth was absolute.

Raven: (angrily) I don't believe you. There has to be a way. (softer tone) I don't want to be this. I don't want to help him.

(She turns her face away and drops her eyes.)

Raven: Mother...I'm...afraid.

Arella: You forever had the love of your people, Raven, even knowing what you would become-and what that would bring.

(By this time, the balcony is covered with doves.)

Arella: It is too late for Earth, just as it was too late for Azarath.

(The flock scatters as the view fades to white. Fade in to a scene of utter devastation-Azarath now lies in smoldering ruins under an awful crimson sky, just as Jump City appeared in Raven's earlier visions of the future. She stares in bug-eyed horror at the citywide catastrophe, unable to tell if this is real or another nightmare.)

Raven: (whispering) No.

(Slow pan across the debris; a stream of lava courses sluggishly down what used to be a street, and Trigon's rumbling laughter reverberates in the air. Cut to the base of the aviary tower and tilt up slowly along its height, or rather what is left of it. The upper half has been ripped away and the golden bird is now only a formless mass of slag. Above the remains of the structure, Trigon's four red eyes shine through the haze of smoke and ash.)

(Zoom in on these, then dissolve to an extreme close-up of Slade's face. Pull back to show that he has snared the other four Titans in burning tendrils that extend from his hand. Robin unconscious on the flow as the rest are strain against the bonds to no avail. Cut to Beast and Slade slugging it out with Beast delivering a flurry of punches to Slade's head as Deathstroke tries to block them to no avail. He does finally have an opening by blasting Beast in the face and lashes out flaming swords as Beast Boy takes out his wrist blades with electrical bolts running down the blades. They go at it with clash after clash of the blades colliding with one another. It gets to the point both are at an equal level of trying to get the other down by putting their might into their battle of bronzes. It leans for in favor to Deathstroke as he uses his powers of fire to bring out two more swords directed at Beast Boy.)

Slade: Struggling only makes it worse-and how I hate to see you suffer. This won't hurt a bit.

Raven: (from o.c.) Wanna bet?!

(The armored walking Zippo lighter is hit broadside with a huge slab of stone under her control and sandwiched between it and the wall before he can blink. His prisoners, now free, start to come around from the pounding they have taken, and Robin looks off across the chamber. Cut to the base of the central pillar and tilt up to the hand. Raven stands in its shaft of light, having returned from her visit to Azarath, and a close-up reveals the inscriptions that have surfaced all over her body. Her face, with its burning white eyes, is twisted into a look of undiluted fury.)

(The rock slab she smashed into Slade stands quietly against the wall for a second, then glows brightly around the edges and explodes in a shower of fragments. Up he comes, still very much in one piece and ready to break a few other things if he can get his hands on them. As he steps toward the pillar, Raven descends to face him.)

Raven: (menacingly) I told you to leave them out of this!

Slade: How sweet. You've come back to save your friends. But you're only delaying their pain... (warming up both hands) ...and yours.

Raven: Well, what are you waiting for? (crossing to him) Aren't you going to attack? Reduce me to ashes? Or did your master forbid you from hurting me? (He recoils a bit at this.) Did he order you to keep his gem safe?

Cyborg: (to others) So Raven has the gem?

Beast: (sitting up like the undertaker) No. (Back to her; he continues o.c.) She is the gem.

(He has just figured out what Slade told her in "Birthmark"-that she will become involved in a chain of events intended to bring about the destruction of the world. The infernal errand boy cools down the fireballs he has been holding in check.)

Slade: (dropping slowly out of sight) I'll be sure to give him your regards.

(A camera shift to floor level shows that he is sinking through it, with fire licking up around his form. After he has disappeared entirely, Raven speaks up.)

Raven: I'm not finished yet!

(Dropping to her knees, she thrusts one black hand through the stone; after a shoulder-wrenching effort, she gets to her feet and levitates Slade right back up into the chamber.)

Raven: This time, I have a message for you.

(Her eyes blaze and her powers extend themselves over every square inch of the steel-sheathed supervillain. A moment's pause is followed by a series of vicious heaves that sends him crashing into the ceiling, then the floor, then to the far wall in a shower of dust.)

Raven: (floating past others, all dumbfounded) You tell him that he'll have to destroy me before I help him!

Slade: You can tell him yourself. (Close-up.) The hour is near.

(His eye widens as he notices a wide shadow falling over him; its source is a huge mass of stone that thunders down on him from the ceiling thanks to Raven. A few deft swings of her arms break him loose and bounce him all over the chamber like a pinball, after which she closes one Mark-emblazoned hand into a fist. This gesture brings up a few tons of fragments and crashes them together on Slade, who has been suspended in midair, and her "soul self" manifests itself right behind her. This makes his eye widen in pure surprise; with a primal yell, she sends the black bird figure straight at him and scores a direct hit. What comes next is an explosion that hides half the chamber in smoke clouds and leaves the other Titans struggling to hold their ground.)

(When the haze dissipates, Slade stands up from the huge crater blasted into the wall, showing his head to be twisted at an angle usually only seen in a corpse with a snapped neck. If anything, it is even more severe than the result of the beatdown Robin laid on him in "Birthmark," and it takes him perhaps a bit longer to put himself right. The crackling of vertebrae is heard just as clearly now as it was then; when he is back in order, Raven floats closer.)

Raven: I'm not afraid of you anymore!

Slade: You might not fear me-but look who's afraid of you.

(As she turns to look over her shoulder, he disappears into the smashed wall. Her eyes go wide with shock, and the camera cuts to the other four-their own eyes ready to pop from the sockets, except Beast who was a worried look not of but for his friend, making the point clear beyond any doubt. Long pause.)

(Beast Boy grabs out an electrical bolt made twenty-foot chain and grabs Slade with it and brings Slade to him.)

Beast: Tell him, we'll be waiting. (Launches Slade twenty-five feet into the air and slams him down as Deathstroke disappears into the Earth)

( The rest look at him as his eyes return to his green color and looks at them, then towards Raven.)

Beast: Lets go. (as he charges lightning out of his hands to teleport them all back to the tower.)

(Dissolve to the exterior of the Tower, then cut to the operations center and zoom in slowly. Raven sits huddled on the couch, Beast Boy alongside, and the other three are ranged in front and behind. Her marks have disappeared.)

Raven: The ancient order used the name "Scath" to protect the true identity of their master. We know him as Trigon.

(This is the first time to date that her father's name has been mentioned on camera. Cyborg recoils in shock upon hearing it.)

Cyborg: Are you serious? That's who we're up against? Oh, man!

Starfire: His cruelty is legendary, even on my world.

Beast Boy: So, that's why you have all those marks on your body.

Raven: It's a warning. It means Trigon is coming-and the way he gets here is through me. I'm not just a person. I'm a portal.

Robin: (sitting next to her) But, Raven, why you?

Raven: Because...Trigon...is my father.

(Cut to Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire, whose eyes are now ready to jump loose and go into orbit at this bit of news, then back to Raven. Beast Boy is equally flabbergasted-he and Cyborg have just realized that they made his acquaintance in "Nevermore" without even knowing it.)

Raven: Bad things are going to happen soon. (crossing to windows) Really bad things. And it's gonna be my fault. I thought I could handle this alone. I tried...but...I was wrong.

(Starfire's hand lands on one shoulder and turns her away from the glass.)

Starfire: For confiding in us, we are most humbled. (Robin and Cyborg join the pair.)

Cyborg: I only have one question. How do we stop him?

Raven: We can't. (Beat Boy approaches.)

Beast Boy: But that doesn't mean we still can't try, because there's no evil that we can't handle.

(All five gaze out the window at the sun rising over Jump City Bay-daybreak has come. Cu to just outside the upper stories, pulling back to frame the blue sky, then fade to black.)

(On the next line, pan to bring a river of lava into view; flames at the far end of a truly immense underground cavern, and Slade kneels at one bank, facing the flow. Behind him is a monolith bearing Trigon's mark.)

Slade: The prophecy has been revealed. The portal has accepted her fate.

(Cut to just behind him; he looks up at Trigon's eyes, floating in the hideous glare of the flames.)

Voice of Trigon: You serve me well, Slade. Continue to please me, and I shall honor our deal. (Cut to Slade.) I shall return what you have lost.

Slade: (forehead Mark flaring) I am depending on it.

(Everything but that brand fades to black; it shines redly in the dark for a long moment before fading away as well.)


	3. The End part 1

PROLOGUE

(Opening shot: a large round skylight, seen from below, through which the clear blue sky can be seen. Pull back slowly as the sun moves into view and Trigon's deep, grating voice begins to speak.)

Voice of Trigon: The time has come. The prophecy shall be fulfilled. Tonight, at dusk, when the planets align...

(Tilt down from the skylight to frame the spacious underground chamber the Titans discovered in "The Prophecy" The demon's four red eyes shine on a sculpted head, and electricity crackles between the fingers of the stone hand on its central pillar.)

Voice of Trigon: ...the portal will be opened.

(As he continues, the tilt continues down through the floor and stops in the underground cavern where we last left Slade. He is kneeling before a solid sheet of flames.)

Voice of Trigon: Finally, I shall be free from this fiery prison- (Zoom in on Slade.) -and the Earth shall be mine.

(Cut to a pan across the river of lava before which he is genuflecting; behind him is the monolith with Trigon's blazing crest-also known as the Mark of Scath. Stop on him during the next line.)

Slade: I will make sure that Raven realizes her destiny. (Trigon's eyes gaze at him above the fire.) And for bringing you your precious gem... (Close-up of his forehead.) ...I expect you to keep your part of the bargain... (lifting head) ...and return what is precious to me.

(A row of Marks appears on the cavern wall behind the four eyes.)

Voice of Trigon: You bring me the gem- (Pull back slowly.) -and you shall get what you deserve.

Slade: Deal.

(He stands up as the walls tile themselves with the Mark, the camera circling around him to show the ring of jagged S's stretching around the entire perimeter.)

Slade: It's a beautiful day for the end of the world.

(Dissolve to Raven's room in Titans Tower and zoom in slowly on her bed as the sun begins to rise over the Jump City skyline framed in her window. In close-up, she is sleeping peacefully and stars to wake up at this first light. What snaps her up with a terrified gasp, though, are the burning red runes that appear all over her body, the ones that Slade laid on her in "Birthmark." Close-up of her wide-eyed face.)

Raven: (horrified) No.

(She dips her head as the camera pulls back slightly. Fade to black.)

Act One

(Opening shot: the exterior of the Tower. Zoom in slowly and dissolve to Raven on the roof, watching the sunrise. She has donned her cloak, which she did not wear while sleeping. The breeze toys idly with her hair and cloak, but her concentration is focused on her marked forearms. Cut to her perspective of one of them, tilting down from wrist to elbow, then back to her. The brand across her forehead has faded out.)

Beast Boy: (from o.c., quite chipper) What are you doing up so early?

(His voice startles her into covering up both arms; now he walks up from behind.)

Raven: I could ask you the same thing.

Beast: I love the sunrise. The promise of a new day and anything's possible.

Raven: You always so cheery this early?

Beast: Maybe. Looks like it's going to be a beautiful day.

Raven: Yeah. (smiling) Hungry?

(Dissolve to a close-up of some nameless brown glop-five puddles of it-smoking and bubbling angrily on the kitchen stovetop, then tilt up to frame Raven staring worriedly at the lot. Her markings have subsided. She might be trying to make pancakes; if so, the experiment appears to be a complete failure. One of them pops up a short distance and is regarded with some unease by Beast when he pokes his head out from behind her. Finally, she pulls out a spatula and flips up one serving with considerable effort-the edges have burned and stuck to the surface. It sails across the counter toward the gape-mouthed Beast, who sidesteps just in time to catch it with his plate instead of his face. However, it is so heavy that he is pulled off balance and down to the floor, and he stands up with his mind still reeling a bit.)

Beast Boy: Nice flip? (He compliments worried to death.)

(Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire pop up behind him and peer cautiously toward the evil brown mush. Briefly giving the quartet a funny look over her shoulder, Raven carries over a dish piled high with the food and smiles.)

Raven: Morning. (Her perspective of them.) Pancakes?

(Question marks pop up above all four heads.)

Robin: Um...thanks? (The other three disappear.)

Starfire: What is the occasion? (Back to Raven.)

Raven: Can't I just do something nice for my friends?

Cyborg: Um...yeah, but...

Robin: ...it's just that you never have before.

(Lightning strikes in the kitchen and clears to show a slightly freaky sight gag. She aims a squint-eyed grimace toward the camera while the two boys stand in the background with their backs to her. More bolts crack out as a sweat drop stands on Beast Boy's head. The gag ends with one more strike to show the four nervously beaming diners at the counter; each now has a full plate.)

Beast Boy: Guess there's a first time for everything. Right guys? (giving a pity smile and a thumbs up)

(He voices a little chuckle, whereupon they begin to chow down. The crunching sounds from within their mouths tell right away that her experiment not only looks like a failure, it tastes like one as well. Close-up of Starfire's flushing face at one end of the counter, panning along its length. Robin's eyes narrow to points, Cyborg loses his fork with a gummy-mouthed shudder, and Beast Boy's utensil just hangs between his teeth. After a long moment, he lets it drop and his cheeks bulge out of all proportion as he struggles to keep from tossing his cookies on the carpet. The next things to happen, all in the space of about one second, are the fainting of Cyborg and the ducking away of Robin and Beast Boy to heave their guts.)

(These last two straighten up, drooling a bit. Sight gag: Raven turns away, crushed, and a storm cloud forms over her head. Beast Boy slides down the floor almost immediately, while Cyborg struggles back up.)

Robin: (with effort) Don't you think it's nice of Raven to make us breakfast?

(The big man lifts one arm from behind the counter, bringing up a bottle of maple syrup, and proceeds to drown his breakfast in it.)

Cyborg: (under his breath) Even though the girl has no clue how to cook.

(Robin elbows him angrily and points across the counter. Now the cloud over Raven's head has expanded to fill her entire side of the kitchen, and she stands waist deep in the rising water from its downpour.)

Cyborg: Oops, did I say that out loud? (giving thumbs-up) Yum!

(A shark fin breaks the water. This sight gag ends; cut to Starfire's end of the counter, where she-in "Super Deformed" style-is eagerly packing it away. The fork is in one hand, a bottle of mustard-her favorite beverage-is in the other, and she has one bite to go.)

Starfire: (slathering it on) Burnt on the outside, yet runny on the inside. Just like the incinerated glorka roaches of my home world. (She eats it and holds out her plate.) More, please!

(All three boys reach into view and deposit their "pancakes" on her plate.)

Starfire: What a glorious way to start the day!

(Her normal style returns as the camera cuts to a shot of Raven's back. The sound of gurgling causes her to direct a puzzled glance over her shoulder, and the camera shifts to frame her looking sidewise as the other four Titans. Starfire loads her second helping up with mustard, Cyborg is busy shooting syrup into Beast Boy's open mouth-the gurgling was his-and Robin is pumping his fist to cheer him on. Zoom in on this whole display of mealtime silliness, then cut to an extreme close-up of Raven's fist as it thumps down on the counter. However, when the camera pulls back to frame her face, it and her voice are rather more casual, or at least her best effort at it.)

Raven: So, I was thinking. After breakfast, you guys wanna, maybe, you know, hang out or something?

(She forces a huge grin onto her face, the crackling of her cheeks revealing just how great a strain this is for her, and a new crop of question marks pops out over the others' heads. They start to float away as something starts to beep; Robin reveals the source by pulling out his communicator and opening it.)

Robin: It'll have to wait.

(He puts the device away and peels out. Cut to just outside the operations center door, which opens to let everyone but Raven charge out. She is left alone at the kitchen counter. In close-up, she uses her powers to raise her hood-which has been down to this point-and flies after the rest of the team.)

(Cut to an extreme close-up of a radioactive hazard symbol. A grating screech is heard as a large purplish hand digs in and drags the whole thing up. Wheels are seen underneath during this movement; pull back to show the symbol on the side of a tanker truck and the hand as belonging to Plasmus. The setting is a street in Jump City. He tips the rig, directing the tank's liquid waste into his mouth, while the driver and his coworker jump free and run for it along with a couple of onlookers. The empty truck is then slammed into a building and thrown to the street, filling the screen with smoke and flame from its skid along the pavement.)

(Cut to an overhead view of this bit of the city, the blast spreading upward from ground level, and zoom in slightly as the Titans make the scene. Starfire is carrying Cyborg, Robin is being towed by Beast Boy as a pterodactyl, and Raven brings up the rear. A quick rove through the streets brings the camera back to Plasmus, who screams just before the attack begins: eye blast and sonic cannon shot, Cyborg and Robin being dropped, the latter hurling a disc. Raven is left alone in midair for the moment.)

Raven: (disbelieving) Plasmus? (relieved) It's just Plasmus.

(On the second half of this line, the shape-shifter is hurled back into view as a rhinoceros and crashes into a building. He then tumbles to a lower rooftop and sits up in human form, rubbing his head.)

Beast Boy: Yeah, but he's still hideous as ever.(Turns to her, giving a smirk.)

(The walking slime ball drags up the tanker truck and gets ready for another flying Starfire/Robin charge.)

Robin: Put down the tanker, you big glob of goo!

(The vehicle is thrown at him upside down; Starfire lets go of him so he can run along its undercarriage and leap clear at the end. Out comes another disc, which rapidly freezes Plasmus' entire body upon striking the chest. The world's nastiest Popsicle is then shattered by Beast Boy's rush from behind as a tyrannosaurus rex; an instant later, though, Plasmus reforms himself and screams in fury.)

Robin: Titans! Go!

(All charge in, Beast Boy having become a pterodactyl again, and the leader pulls out his fighting staff for a twirl as he goes. As Starfire strafes with eye blasts, he tries a swing only to be swatted away and go flying past Raven.)

Raven: Robin!

(Exerting her powers over his body, she brings him up just short of a rather inconveniently placed building and lowers him to the street.)

Robin: (giving thumbs-up.) Thanks. I owe you one.

(He dashes across the road to rejoin the fight, and for the second time in thirty seconds, she is alone and unsure of what to do with herself.)

Raven: Yeah...sure.

(She moves in. Now Cyborg digs his fingers into the corner of a building and heaves with all his might to uproot the entire structure-and a fair-sized one at that. Once he has torn it free of the foundations, he swings it around and smashes Plasmus squarely across the face; the aggressor suddenly finds himself airborne and hurtling over the rooftops. He crashes through two buildings, disappears into the roof of a third, and finally slams down in a distant street. The screen fills with dust from the impact, after which the camera cuts to a close-up of a scrawny, shaven-headed, bare-chested man lying amid the rubble and pulls back. Liberally festooned with ribbons of purple slime and clad only in a pair of ragged trunks, he is asleep and breathing fitfully. Recall that this is Plasmus' human form-prisoner 385901, as seen in "Divide and Conquer"-which he assumes only when sleeping.)

(The Titans gather at the edge of the crater to check him over; Beast Boy has resumed human form. 385901's face scrunches up and his eyes pop open, and in an instant he has become Plasmus again and rolled himself into a ball in an attempt to flatten the heroes. A blast from Cyborg's cannon rips him apart into gobbets of sludge that fall every which way-but in no time they have flung themselves at the big man and completely buried him. The mass reconstitutes itself into Plasmus, whose gut bulges slightly due to the Titan trying to fight his way out. Starfire swings around to the front and dives in for an eye-beam strafe; he tries to swat her down, but she dodges and zeroes in on the distended abdomen. Her full-throttle charge smashes her deep into the slimy body and out the back, carrying Cyborg a short distance before both tumble to the street. Both are liberally doused with green muck from the monster's innards.)

Starfire: That was most unpleasant.

(Plasmus' shadow throws itself over them both; now he fixed himself up, and he lets off a fresh howl of rage and sends a mass of gooey tentacles from his body toward the prone pair. Just in the nick of time, Raven arrives and throws up a shield that stretches all the way across the street to block the strike, so that the disgusting material piles up in a purple swamp. Realizing that he has been aced out, Plasmus breaks off and melts himself down to flow over to a tanker truck parked nearby. He then reforms, yanks the whole thing up with too many hands, and breaks it in half; this one is also carrying nuclear waste, and he drinks his fill. However, Beast Boy swoops in as a hawk with his body electrically charged and starts digging his talons into any body parts that present themselves easily. The truck's remains are flung aside; as the Titan bird of prey streaks away, he is seized and yanked close to the double-wide mouth.)

(Plasmus sniffs at Beast Boy, who resumes human form while clutched in that huge fist, and lets off a violent sneeze that propels the would-be snack away in a flood of snot. Letterbox view, top third of the screen: phlegm and the dripping teen fly in all directions down the block. Fullscreen: Beast Boy bounces to a stop, his legs sticking up in the air.)

Beast Boy: Uhhh! (sitting up) If there's one thing worse than goo.

Raven: (flying past) Sneeze goo.

Beast Boy: (shuddering mightily) Yup.

(Down the way, Cyborg backs up and keeps his cannon going full tilt as Plasmus looms over him. Now properly cleaned up, the big man shifts his aim to a different spot on the torso, revealing the hole he has already blasted through it. Plasmus, however, will have no more of this and grabs Cyborg's right arm to slam him up against a building. From o.c. above drops a sheet of black energy like a guillotine blade; the purple forearm is neatly severed, and the barrier then plows its owner away as Cyborg falls free. Down comes Raven from the rooftops, the set of her jaw showing that she has no good nerves left for Plasmus to work.)

Raven: Let's just finish this!

(The disgusting beast tumbles across the street and temporarily liquefies upon hitting the ground; a second later, he is back on his feet and roaring mad. Floating high above the street, Raven assumes her mediation pose.)

Raven: Azarath Metrion Zinthos!

(Her "soul self" emerges, taking on human form as it did in "The Prophecy," and hurtles straight as Plasmus. Zoom in on the broad mouth as the projection disappears into it, then pull back to show the entire upper body rapidly expanding as if someone had just hooked an air compressor into it. This leads to a spectacular explosion of maroon muck that splatters the entire block and leaves 385901 to drop on the sidewalk, after which the "soul self" returns to Raven's body. The blowout has made a mess of both her and the prisoner, who has again fallen into an uneasy slumber, and globs of slime hit the ground near the other Titans before she touches down. Now, like Cyborg, Beast Boy and Starfire have cleaned the mess off themselves.)

Robin: Uh...nice work, Raven. (She pushes her sodden hair back and smiles.)

Raven: Who wants pizza? (The rest of the titans look taken back)

Beast Boy: There's diffidently something's wrong with this girl.( While pointing at Raven)

(Dissolve to a long shot of the Titans' favorite pizza joint, then cut to a close-up of a single slice left on a serving dish. Five hands slam down on it at once, with Cyborg's at the bottom of the pile. Pull back to frame the accompanying face-off; they have withdrawn their hands, Raven has hosed herself down, and Silkie pops up at the table.)

Cyborg: I deserve the last slice! I was covered in goo!

Beast Boy: Excuse me. I got sneezed on!

Starfire: I flew through the goo. (groaning angrily) This slice is mine.

(She brings her fist down hard enough to shake the table-not to mention the entire block-and Silkie is jolted out of its seat. The dish slides over to her and, as Raven watches with some shock, she pulls out a bottle of mustard and squirts it on the pizza. Close-up of the pie-eyed girl, whose face quickly rearranges itself into a tranquil smile as the sound of munching drifts over to her. The next shot shows all five Titans again: one eating, two watching, and two losers-Cyborg turned away with tears running down their cheeks, and BeastBoy is face palmed.)

Robin: (to Raven) You're awfully quiet.

Raven: Just enjoying hanging out with my friends.

(Dissolve to a stretch of forest, where the Titans are out for a little hike and visible as silhouettes. Beast Boy, at the rear, pumps his arms back and forth; in close-up, his face is now the only one smiling as Raven leads the way. Close-up; he carries on like this for a moment longer, then stops suddenly and recoils in shock.)

Beast Boy: Hold it!

(Extreme close-up of the lead hiker's face, whose eyes narrow to panicked points, then cut to behind her. She wheels to face back along the trail, raising a hand in preparation to use her powers-and the camera then cuts to a close-up of a penny lying in the grass. Beast Boy reaches into view to pick it up; this is what brought him up short, and he straightens up and holds it triumphantly on his palm.)

Beast Boy: Found a penny, pick it up...uh...something, something, something...good luck. At least that's what I've been told as a toddler.

(Raven relaxes her guard and smiles, and he goes into a victory dance that involves repeatedly pumping the hand with the coin in the air.)

Cyborg: Anyone up for a game of Extreme Stankball after lunch?

(On the end of this line, he holds up a wad of filthy, fuming laundry-the "ball" in the game he and Beast Boy invented in "Spellbound"-and a few flies are heard buzzing nearby.)

Raven: Yeah, sure.

(She moves ahead, not noticing the totally dumbfounded looks on either of these two boys as Cyborg lowers the ball. Robin and Starfire match it when they pop up nearby; Beast Boy is the first to get over it.)

Robin: But you hate anything extreme-or stanky.

Raven: Maybe I never gave it a chance. (Starfire flies to her.)

Starfire: Raven, would you still have time to join me in the painting of the toenails later today?

Raven: Sounds like fun. (Robin slides up, now very suspicious.)

Beast: Okay, Raven, what gives? Pancakes? Pizza? Stankball? Toenails? And you haven't called me stupid all day. Who replaced Raven with a robot?

(To test this hypothesis, he whips out a metal detector and moves toward Raven, intending to run the thing over her-but she floats hastily backward out of reach and turns away.)

Raven: I just want everyone to have a nice day today. (Extreme close-up of one eye, panning slowly across the other.) Come on. We have a lot to do before sunset.

(Pull back to frame all five. The sun shines warmly down on them, but with no warning it begins to darken as if the moon were passing in front to cause an eclipse. However, neither the moon nor any other heavenly body is visible in the sky; the event is happening of its own accord. The sky dims into twilight as the sun is blocked out, and once it has disappeared except for a corona around the edge, the blue deepens even more from the horizon up. Tilt up to follow the transition into the clouds, then cut to Raven, seen from behind. She is pushed back and forth by some unseen force and ends up facing us with genuine fear in her eyes.)

(As she struggles against the influence that has seized control of her body, the camera cuts to a slow pan across her four incredulous teammates.)

Cyborg: What's going on?

Beast: Raven!

(She is now falling slowly backward, both arms raised to expose the shining characters that have emerged, and hits the ground on her back in an overhead shot. The camera rotates as the other four run to her side, then cuts to a close-up. She is once more thoroughly covered with Slade's marks and is a semi-faint, but Beast boy's hand pulls her partway up and shakes her out of it. Cut to her blurred perspective of the other four Titans.)

Beast: Why didn't you tell us? (She moans and focuses her eyes.) It's happening, isn't it?

Starfire: Please, Raven. Today is the day? It is... (Extreme close-up of Raven's mouth.)

Raven: (softly) ...the end of the world.

(Pull back to frame her face. Tears fill her eyes, which she squeezes shut in a fruitless effort to hold them back. Beast Boy, Robin, and Starfire kneel nearby while Cyborg remains standing; fear, uncertainty, and concern for the supine Titan play at top volume across all four faces. Tilt up into the deep blue sky and stop on Trigon's eyes, which shine in the highest reaches of the heavens. Fade to black.)

Act Two

(Opening shot: the exterior of the Tower, with lights blazing from all the windows in the premature nightfall. Inside, Robin leads the team to a closed door at the end of a hall; it opens to reveal a second door beyond, which in turn opens to admit them into another passage. Cyborg is carrying Raven, whose runes have faded from her body.)

Robin: Okay, everyone. Just as we planned.

Raven: Where are you taking me?

Beast: You said there was nothing we could do. We disagree, so we've been preparing for this day.

(He is referring to her assertion, from the end of "The Prophecy," that Trigon's arrival on Earth cannot be stopped. Reaching yet another closed door, he places a hand on the adjacent palm reader panel and has it scanned. From here, cut to inside a large square room whose walls shine with a thick ribbon of blue circuitry, and whose floor is marked with a large, glowing white circle. In the center of each wall is a similar, smaller circle with a rune inscribed in the same shade of blue. A door in the far wall slides up, revealing the Titans n the hall-this is the other side of the spot Robin reached-and Raven stares in disbelief.)

Raven: You did all this for me?

Robin: We're ready to take on Trigon.

Raven: No. You can't be. Just go. Save yourselves.

Beast: We're not giving up. Neither are you. Our plan is simple. Raven, you are the portal. Trigon needs you to take over the Earth.

Cyborg: But if Trigon can't get to the portal, then he can't take over.

Starfire: So, all we must do is keep the Trigon from getting to Raven.

Raven: (sighing wearily) You can't.

Beast Boy: We can, and We will.

(The five heroes enter the space-a safety room or emergency bunker-and gather in the large white circle. Cyborg sets Raven on her feet.)

Cyborg: You'll be safe in here. Everything's ready. I've installed all the latest state-of-the-art technology. Nothing alive is getting in here.

Starfire: (pointing out rune on one wall) And these symbols should keep out everything else. (She holds up an open book and blushes.) We took them out of your books. (Pages fall out;)

Beast Boy: Just in case you need some extra mojo.

Raven: (a bit exasperated) This is all great, but it's not gonna make a difference. (resignedly, turning away) Today the prophecy will be fulfilled. Trigon is coming. There's no stopping him.

Robin: There's never been a villain we couldn't stop before.

Raven: Trigon isn't a villain. He is the incarnation of evil, the source of all darkness. The-

(Cut to Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire on this last word.)

Beast Boy: The one who isn't getting here under our watch. (Back to her.)

Raven: You don't understand. You don't know Trigon.

Robin: And Trigon doesn't know the Titans. Stay in here. (pointing up o.c.) We'll be watching from up there if you need us.

(The camera shifts to follow his gesture, revealing a broad window or monitor set high on the wall in front of Raven. She eyes it for a moment, then turns worriedly away, and everyone else heads for the door. Beast Boy, the last one out, stops just short of the threshold and glances at something in his hand. A moment later, he has darted back across the room and caught her right wrist.)

Beast Boy: (hugs her and wispers to her) Please believe. We can do this. (While hugging her, he slid something in her hand.)

(He runs out and she inspects the curled fingers with some puzzlement. In close-up, she opens them to reveal his offering-the gleaming good-luck penny he picked up during the Titans' hike in

Act One. Tilt up to her face on the start of the next line.)

Raven: (softly) All the luck in the world won't help us now.

(Fade to black and immediately tilt down into Trigon's cavern. As in the prologue, Slade kneels at the bank of the lava river, with the Mark-inscribed monolith behind him. The ones that appeared on the walls earlier on have disappeared.)

Slade: The hour is approaching. (He lifts his head.) The army is ready. (Trigon's eyes gaze at him from high on the wall.)

Voice of Trigon: You had best perform.

Slade: (standing up) I'll do my job. You better have my payment when I get back.

(He turns away from the wall and raises both hands.)

Slade: Rise!

(Cut to a bare patch of stone floor, which disintegrates as smoke and fire belch up from below. Two burning appendages snake up and latch on to the lip of this new hole, followed by a huge, yowling, birdlike head made entirely of flames. Within seconds, many more have burst free of the rock; their thick, tentacle-like arms taper to points, as do their legless lower bodies, similar to that of a ghost. These apparitions fall into marching formation and gather around Slade. Pan through the motionless ranks, then cut to Trigon's eyes.)

Voice of Trigon: Bring me the portal! (Slade steps to the front line.)

Slade: Warriors! March!

(He moves out, as do they. Cut to a monitor that shows the exterior of the Tower and pan to reveal is as one of several in a control panel. The second screen shows the building from an overhead angle, while the third affords an overhead view of Raven meditating in the safety room. Stop on this last.)

Cyborg: (from o.c.) So far, everything seems pretty much normal, at least normal for the last day on Earth.

(Cut to him and the other three; they are in a small control room illuminated only by red emergency lights.)

Robin: It's no one's last day.

Starfire: Everything is going to be okay, yes?

Robin: I hope so.

(Camera shift: now we see them through the high window in the safety room-this observation booth is on its other side. Tilt down to frame Raven, who floats a bit above the floor.)

Raven: (thinking) They can't stop him. Nothing can stop him. (Close-up of the penny in her left hand.) But they're willing to risk everything for me. (Back to her face; zoom in.) If anyone could stop Trigon, maybe they could.

(The next voice makes her open her eyes in a hurry.)

Voice of Trigon: You know better than to fill your head with fanciful ideas.

Raven: (thinking) You aren't here. (Her hand; she closes it about the penny.) You can't be. (Pull back to behind her.)

Voice of Trigon: I am always with you. (Broad shadow over her.) You are part of me-forever. (Profile of her.)

Raven: (with effort) Get out!

(Behind her, the safety room walls are swiftly replaced by those of a cavern; she gazes around on the verge of panic.)

Voice of Trigon: There is no stopping what is about to happen.

(Pull back. Now she floats in midair above a sea of flames in this underground space. Just below her is a small, hovering slab of rock, and the camera pulls back to show others in the inferno and those two pairs of red eyes in the background.)

Voice of Trigon: This is the reason I sired you. You were born so I could rule the Earth.

Raven: (standing, turning to face wall) What if I don't let you? What if I don't become the portal?

Voice of Trigon: It is not your place to tell me what to do!

(The four eyes become a burning sphere that swiftly expands to fill half the cavern; they then reappear within its hideous light.)

Voice of Trigon: I am the one with all the power! I am the one who decides your destiny! You do not have a choice!

(Raven backs up a bit and throws a wide black beam across the chamber. The eyes and spherical incinerator have disappeared, but now a towering silhouette has appeared among the flames. Her shot is stopped by a force field around the shape, whose words are spoken in that awful, grating voice. Trigon's body matches the shadow that fell over her in the safety room.)

Trigon: You will always be Daddy's little girl.

Raven: I am nothing like you!

(Her eyes go red and double up to match his own-and, realizing that this anger is about to tip her over into his control, she cries out and claps both hands to her face. Her sudden retreat is met with the steady falls of his cloven-hoofed feet as he crosses the cavern. The air now shimmers from the extreme heat of the blazes on all sides.)

Trigon: You wanted to protect your friends-keep them from knowing.

(Cut to her; she touches down amid the fires.)

Trigon: (from o.c.) But you cannot deny the evil within you. (Pull back to an overhead view.) You will bring destruction to everything and everyone.

(On the end of this, he stops just o.c. so that one of his clawed hands is in frame. Now we see a head-on view of the pair-she in front with head bowed, he behind with all four eyes glowing.)

Trigon: Like father, like daughter. (She lifts her head.)

Raven: No!

Trigon: You cannot hide from your destiny.

(Just as quickly as this nightmare scene began, it ends with a cut back to the safety room. The camera is positioned behind Raven, still in mediation but with head bowed, and pulls back into the observation booth. All four of the other Titans watch intently; cut to Robin and Starfire.)

Starfire: The Trigon has contacted her! We must assist!

Robin: She's safest if she stays in there.

Cyborg: (from o.c.) Robin's right. (Cut to him; an alarm is heard.) Besides, we've got company.

Beast: Maybe so, let's go for one last fight. (He atracks his predator wrist blades and eyes glow an electrical white, ready to go)

(The warning is coming from the panel nearest to him, which displays the word "ALERT" and shows a radar screen on which many blips are closing in fast. Cut to a close-up of Slade's smoking steel boots as they step onto the shore of the Tower's island. Ttilt up to frame the rest of him, then pull back to behind him. He regards the structure silently and is greeted with the sight of a broad column of blinding white light that shoots skyward from the center of its roof. A cut to this level shows Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire ready for a little action; without a word, they go over the edge one by one, Beast Boy becoming a hawk on the fly.)

(Close-up of Robin, now at ground level with his cape wrapped tightly around his body.)

Robin: (throwing it open) Slade.

(He is joined by the others in a twinkling as he pulls out his two short fighting staffs. Cyborg and Starfire ready their respective weapons, while Beast Boy resumes human form.)

Robin: We're ready for you!

Slade: Give me the girl.

Beast Boy: (Coming into the foreground) You want her, come get her.

Slade: You don't have a choice in the matter. I'm taking her.

Cyborg: Oh, yeah? You and what army?

(It takes only an instant for his unearthly forces to emerge from the ground, the camera panning quickly across the line to stop on Slade among their ranks. An overhead view reveals just how badly hemmed in and outnumbered our four heroes truly are. Back to Beast Boy, who lets off a shrill, terrified scream as Cyborg leans in next to him.)

Beast Boy: (to Cyborg) You just had to open your big mouth didn't you?

Slade: (closing raised hand into fist) Attack!

(All but Robin scatter before the troops' advance. Tilt up to frame the Tower in the background; he leaps straight up out of the crowd and angles himself toward Slade, delivering one crushing blow after another with his staffs. The enemy leader is driven backward by this pounding, but somehow manages to stay on his feet and does not move as Robin charges in for a final kick. This hit bends him at the knees, so that his arms and upper body are parallel to the ground-but steadily, impossibly, he straightens up and leans into the Boy Wonder's face.)

(Beast was slicing through all the creatures with the wrist blades and ten morphed into a Spinosaurus charging at the fire monsters as they try to takedown the dinosaur morphed Beast Boy.)

(The field marshal's eye pops wide open an instant before he projects a huge blast of fire and scores a point-blank bullseye, hurling Robin far over the blazing warriors. As he tries to get up, one of those feral skulls leans in too close for comfort; snap to black, which is immediately punctuated by the flashes of a few swift blows. Fade in to show him back on his feet, with one staff in hand and several stricken enemies evaporating around him. A jet of fire drills him in the gut and is immediately followed by the one that cast it, whereupon several others charge in to lend a hand.)

(Now star bolts pepper the area, filling the screen with smoke that clears to give a close-up of Starfire. Her furious eyes burn so brightly that they almost appear white rather than green; pull back to show her standing in Robin's place at the center of the mob. As a few move to close the gap left by the previous melee, she generates a basketball-sized sphere of energy between her hands and raises it high while backing up into the air. Dissolve to a longer shot of the battle zone; the ball grows to many times its original size and is then slammed to the ground. There follows a blinding explosion, which throws the foes in all directions and clears to leave only Starfire in the area.)

(She has no time to celebrate, however, as a couple of those tapering arms punch up through the ground to snare her. Beast Boy is on the move, turning into the huge creature he became in "The Beast Within" while descending from a huge jump. Savage swipes of his massive clawed hands rip two of the fire demons apart, after which he races toward the camera until the one narrowed eye fills the screen.)

(The white and pinpoint pupil dissolve to a group of attackers; a blazing lash snakes toward the camera, and we then see Beast Boy knocked high and away to smash through the Tower's operations center window. Tilt down quickly to the front door, toward which another phalanx charges only to be stopped by an overhead blast from Cyborg's cannon. This slices across the ground and is followed by a terrific explosion from the line it traced out; as the glare and smoke dissipate, he leaps down into view, boiling mad.)

Cyborg: No one's getting in here!

(The circuit panel on his left forearm slides open and a black button marked with a lightning bolt pops out. It has barely reached its full extension before the other fist slams down on it. In response, two cables pop out from hidden ports in one side of Tower's base and anchor themselves to freshly exposed connections on his back. The same thing happens with two more cables on the other side of the building, after which a large circular panel at the center of his spine pops out to reveal itself as a huge battery-his power cell.)

(Zoom in on one shoulder, which pops open to reveal a set of gun muzzles, then pan across the rest of him. Chest panel and other shoulder reconfigure themselves in the same way, eye implant become a targeting scope, and something emerges from the spot where his left shoulder and neck meet. Pull back; it is a bazooka-like weapon roughly the size of the main gun on an Abrams tank, and it locks into place, pointing straight ahead.)

(First the left arm, then the right, undergoes a dramatic rearrangement as well-turning into a cannon from whose muzzle a long support rod extends straight ahead. Semicircular rings pop out to frame the cylinder of space immediately ahead of the weapon, which flares up like the ignition/pilot light of a flamethrower. Cut to the Tower's top floor and tilt down as all the lights wink out, the power diverted to this truly fearsome new defense system; sparks crackle between the two raised arm blasters and the ground shakes.)

(Cut to Cyborg's perspective of Slade standing amid a group of his minions, with a few readouts and a picture of the target around the edges of the screen. The sights zero in on him, "LOCKED" flashes below them, and the camera cuts back to the walking military stockpile. Both arms fire at once, releasing a double blast that sweeps the entire island, blowing away all the shock troops and whiting out the screen. Fade in to Slade and zoom in-the camera is riding with the beam-and fade to white again as his eye widens in surprise.)

(Fade in to a patch of smoke, which clears to show Cyborg's hand coming down to support his weight. The refit has reversed itself, and a power gauge on the forearm panel shows his reserves to be nearly drained. A weak groan from o.c. is followed by a longer shot of the area; the other three defenders have gathered in front of the Tower; whose lights are back on. Beast Boy has resumed human form, and Cyborg looks ready to faint. A still longer shot of the combat zone shows the smoke from his cataclysmic assault slowly clearing-the fire creatures have been dispersed, but Slade is still on his feet and smoking profusely. In close-up, we see that his head has been knocked askew just as in "Birthmark" and "The Prophecy"; he straightens it up, popping the vertebrae back into place, and each Titan can only stare in mind-knotting disbelief. The burning apparitions emerge from the ground, having dived for cover beneath it.)

(A flash of white, and the camera has shifted to within the Tower. It moves swiftly along a passage, down a flight of stairs, into the entrance hall toward the door-and then there is another flash that clears to show Raven sprawled on the floor of the safety room. She is unconscious, but a dissolve to an extreme close-up of her face shows her very much aware and displaying all four red eyes. Pull back; she and Trigon are in the smoking cavern where they faced off earlier in this act.)

Trigon: Your friends cannot stop the inevitable.

(Close-up of her; she pulls back and stares into the total darkness, within which his eyes open.)

Trigon: (within darkness) They are doomed.

(Overhead view of her; on the next line, he slides a hand beneath her feet and scoops her up.)

Trigon: (from o.c.) Do you really want their last day to end like this? (Pull back to frame him, standing in fire.) How can you bear to watch them suffer?

Raven: (dropping her head) Don't hurt them.

Trigon: I am not the one hurting them. You are. (Cut to her; he continues o.c.) You know what must be done. (She lifts her head.)

Raven: (pleadingly) But, Father...I don't want to.

Trigon: (from o.c., lowering her) You cannot hide from your destiny.

(The hand curls into a fist. Cut to the back of a fire demon, which recedes from the camera to expose a host of reinforcements and Cyborg on the warpath outside the Tower. He punches his attacker away and throws another for distance as Beast Boy, now a T-rex, dives into the crowd going for Slade. The next one blindsides the big man with a flying tackle; others close in on the besieged dinosaur, but a salvo of starbolts marks the arrival of one very angry Tamaranean. She follows these up with an eye blast that slices through the ranks and past Beast Boy and Slade, who are facing off at a short distance from this free-for-all.)

(The two spar briefly before the young man puts a flying kick into Slade's solar plexus; the latter staggers for a moment and then finds his footing. A second kick is interrupted when both armored hands wrap around Beast's dyno ankle and slam him face first into the ground. Deathstroke knocks him across the way so that he can be seized easily. He and the others struggle vainly against the creatures' inflexible grip as the commander moves in.)

Slade: Do you really want to spend your last day on Earth fighting?

Beast: Even if it is, I'd rather go out with a bang!

(Slade ignites one hand; cut to a close-up of the Titan's madly straining face, then to one of the raised palm.)

Raven: (from o.c.) STOP!

(The hand flames out and all four captives are set carefully on the ground. They look around; cut to their perspective of the rows of suddenly-motionless attackers, with the Tower in the background. A way is quickly cleared to expose Raven behind the group.)

Cyborg: Raven?

(She floats forward; cut to inside the ring as she lands before Slade. Her eyes open-the usual number and color.)

Raven: I will go with you. (Robin inserts himself between the two.)

Robin: We won't let them take you!

Starfire: You need to get back in the safety room! Please!

Raven: I can't hide from my destiny any longer. (She closes her eyes.)

Beast Boy: It isn't gonna happen! ( As he has a hand full of lightning fully charged and ready to blast until the girl at the center of it all suddenly whirls to face them and raises one crackling hand, dragging the other Titans screaming off their feet and pushing them slowly away. One by one, they are lowered unconscious to the ground.)

Raven: (softly, ruefully) Goodbye. Be safe.

(She walks back to Slade.)

Raven: (bitterly) Let's go.

(The flaming warriors part to allow them passage away from the fallen Titans. Fade to black.)

Act Three

(Opening shot: the mysteriously eclipsed sun in the night sky. Tilt down to a patch of wall on a building in Jump City. Trigon's mark is inscribed in red above its door, marking this as the library the Titans investigated in "The Prophecy." Dissolve to an overhead view of the wide circular shaft deep below it, zooming in slowly so that the spiral staircase snaking down the wall seems to rotate. Another dissolve shows Raven and Slade walking along a passage with a high-temperature escort.)

Slade: The chamber has been prepared for you. Everything is ready for Trigon's ascent.

Raven: You're a fool. Whatever he promised, he won't deliver.

Slade: Dear child, you don't know what you're talking about.

Raven: You think I don't know my own father?

Slade: You are merely the portal-an insignificant pawn in Trigon's game.

Raven: Then I guess we have that in common. And once he gets what he wants, you'll be insignificant too. (This brings him up short.)

Slade: (warming up hands) Shut your mouth!

(He is yanked back by a fiery arm around his neck and caught up, all four limbs.)

Slade: Get off me! Do as I command!

(He is lowered to the floor but still held fast, and Raven steps up so that only the side of her cloak is visible. One creature pulls his head up to look her in the face.)

Raven: (from o.c.) Come to think of it, Slade... (Cut to her, eyes closed.) ...you're already insignificant. (She opens four red eyes.) Even your own army won't listen to you.

(He struggles to get out of said army's grip, but to no avail.)

Raven: (turning away) Leave him.

(As she proceeds along the passage, the guards follow her order; Slade is left to stare at the departing group with disbelief and a bit of rage. Cut to the exterior of the Tower, the blocked sun hanging low in the sky, then to the four knocked-out Titans in the dirt near it. They come to in time with the following four lines.)

Robin: (groaning) Raven...

Cyborg: (groaning, cracking neck) She really packs a wallop.

Starfire: I fear it is too late to assist her.

Beast Boy: It's isn't to late. They're headed for the old library. Come on.( As he gets up)

Cyborg: (from o.c.) How do you know?

Beast: The hand. That's where he's got to come from.

(Snap to black.)

(Tilt down into Trigon's cavern-that is, the one in which Slade has addressed the demon. Flames lick up from the lava river in front of the manservant.)

Slade: The portal approaches. The hour is near. It's time for my payment. (The four eyes gaze down at him and widen.)

Voice of Trigon: Payment? For what? (Eyes narrow.) The gem returns of her own free will. You did not deliver her. I did.

Slade: We had a deal. I held up my part of the bargain.

(He gets no response but a bit of derisive laughter. Extreme close-up of his eye; now good and sore at having been royally had, he backs up from the camera and hurls a mighty fireball up at the wall toward Trigon's eyes. It bursts harmlessly against the rock face, as do the others that follow it.)

Voice of Trigon: I granted you these powers, and I can take them away!

(Hands of fire reach down toward the belligerent lackey and levitate him clear of his perch. Now his entire body is wreathed in flames and pulled in a sudden sheet-and the brand he has worn on his forehead throughout this season disappears. The eye behind the mask pops wider than ever before as he lets off one long yell of pure agony. Finally, he disappears into the sheet of flame, which snaps like a giant rubber band.)

(Cut to a from-the-ground view of the round skylight seen at the start of the prologue. The eclipsed sun is partly visible as Raven moves into the chamber; cut to her, gazing upward with quiet stoicism at its growing shadow. After a moment, she brings her right hand out from underneath her cloak and glances at something in the palm-revealed in close-up as the penny Beast Boy gave her in the safety room. Her fingers close around it before the camera tilts up to her face.)

Raven: It is time.

(Pull back to a long shot of her; she is at the base of the stone hand pillar, and Slade's fiery minions are ranged all around it. Tilt up to the skylight on the next line.)

Raven: The prophecy shall be fulfilled.

(The black sun slowly recedes out of the frame. At ground level, she steps solemnly ahead but stops short when a fracas breaks out in the ranks. The shots that ring out give away the other Titans' presence; here they come, Beast Boy flying as a Pteranodon, but are stopped cold when the creatures form a tidal wave of flame and pin them down.)

Beast Boy: Raven!

(She spins on her heel and clears the chamber with the sweep of one hand. Beast Boy is back in human form, and he and the others cross the floor toward her.)

Raven: It has already begun. (Her hood is up; she lowers it.) And there's no stopping what is meant to be.

Beast: So that's it? You're willing to give up on everything, all because of some prophecy you heard as a child?

(Profile view of the group, swiveling to keep Raven in frame and put everyone else out of it. She has closed her eyes and lowered her face in resignation.)

Beast: (from o.c.) What if it's wrong?

Raven: I know what I know. (Back to the others.)

Robin: We don't accept that. You can take control. You can make it not happen. (Overhead view; zoom in on Raven.)

Raven: I've known my whole life that this day was going to come. (Behind her, tracking around the group.) I tried to control the dark side of me. I tried to do good things, to fight evil, and hoped that would somehow make up for the horrible thing I'm destined to do.

Robin: But no one knows their destiny. There are things you can't possibly know.

Raven: There are some things I didn't know- (looking him full on) -like how I would make such wonderful friends. (They stare popeyed.) All I wanted was to make your last day perfect. (turning away) Instead, you spent it worrying about me.

(Beast Boy steps forward; close-up of her hand as he grasps and lifts it, then tilt up to their faces.)

Beast: That's what friends do. (She lets go and backs up.)

Raven: And as my friends, you have to let me go.

(She conjures up a barricade between herself and them; pull back to an overhead view as it stretches across a wide arc of the chamber to seal them out completely. Cut to her side, through which the four observers are visible only as white-outlined black forms. Robin charges up and pounds on the shield without effect, after which the camera cuts to their side and pans slowly. Now Raven is the one in black and white; she gives them a last look, then turns back to the pillar and puts her hood up.)

(Her side again. The stones in her path quiver slightly at her approach and rise from the floor as columns to form a staircase leading up to the hand sculpture. The Titans' side; Robin tries to kick his way through her barricade, Starfire tries an eye blast, and Cyborg slams both bionic fists into it-not even a crack. Raven's side; the columns keep rising from the floor, just in time to keep her from tumbling over the edge of these steps.)

(The back-and-forth cuts continue. Starfire tries to pummel the wall into submission, then uses her eye blast again before Cyborg brings his cannon into play and Robin assaults it with every martial-arts move he knows. Raven has nearly made it up to the gigantic hand. Beast Boy bolts out of the barricade to appear right in front of Raven before she accomplishes her destiny.)

Beast: Raven please. Don't do it.( He said with almost tears in his eyes out of fear of what is to come.)

Raven: Beast Boy, nothing is gonna stop it, ( she approaches him looking straight into his eyes) thank you for trying. ( She kisses him. The kiss is last a near ten seconds as it is broken and Beast still having a pleading look while also being shocked that Raven would kiss him. She then would trap him backwith the rest of the team.)

Raven: The gem was born of evil's fire.

The gem shall be his portal. (Camera tracks slowly around her.)

He comes to claim. (She raises her head, eyes blazing white.) He comes to sire

The end of all things mortal.

(Recall that this is the prophecy spoken by the ancient spirits during the Titans' investigation four episodes ago. On the last line, tilt down; the red inscriptions appear all over her body, and one set of fingers is curled into a set of bullhorns. Back to the Titans' side.)

Robin: (banging on shield) No!

(Above the hand, Raven breaks her pose and lets off a long yell as all the runes fly off her skin to form three spinning circles-above head, around waist, below feet-and her hood flips down. The Titans' side.)

Starfire: Raven!

(Sobbing, she turns away and ends up cradled in Robin's arms. Beast Boy has resumed human form. High overhead, Raven floats in her motionless spreadeagle, the ancient characters still whirling around her. A brilliant blue-white light gathers at her midsection and begins to grow; she closes her eyes as tight as they will go, then opens them again as the flare spreads upward, enveloping her head. The last we see of her is the clenched right fist, which opens to drop her penny. Close-up of the falling coin, turning slowly to show first heads and then tails, then pull back as it clinks onto the base of the pillar.)

(The incredible spectacle continues above the rock palm, giving the impression of a ball being tossed into the air by a gigantic petrified child. After some moments, the upper and lower circles of runes slide to the middle and the whole thing shrinks down to a single point; this promptly explodes into a swirling disc of unholy radiation with flames at its rim. This expands to fill the screen, after which the camera cuts back to the Titans' side. All shield their eyes from the unbearable glare; back to the column, where the pyrotechnics continue to spread across the ceiling of the chamber and finally bear down, shattering the pillar into a mass of fragments.)

(Long shot of the chamber. The demolition work wraps up as the shield Raven erected finally collapses. Now that disk of awful light spreads out across the floor, streaks of red and orange flame swirling like the devil's own peppermint candy, and the whole lot starts to go red and black. The four Titans can only watch, frozen with fear, as the lines of flame that lash across just in front of them-and at the blinding white heart of the maelstrom, a black silhouette begins to emerge. The antlers and four red eyes instantly mark it as Trigon even before any other features can be seen, and within moments, Raven's father has stood up into full view. He looks very much as he did in "Nevermore"-hugely muscled, red skin with black stripes, loincloth, flowing white hair, steel wristbands-but a few details have changed. One, he sports the antlers seen on his silhouette in "Birthmark." Two, the brooch at his throat is no longer there. Three, instead of a jeweled belt, he wears a broad steel piece over the lower chest that matches his wristbands.)

Trigon: The Earth is mine!

(Cut to an overhead close-up of the Titans, who brace for anything and everything as his gargantuan shadow falls over them and the camera pulls back slowly. Fade to black.)

Continued in Part Two


	4. The End part 2

PROLOGUE

Raven: (voice over) The gem was born of evil's fire.

(During this line, fade in to the upper reaches of the underground chamber in which Trigon emerged at the end of Part One. A lick of flame sweeps across the screen to show her floating, vertical and ramrod-stiff with her arms slightly spread. Close-up of her face, zooming in slowly on the eyes that are squeezed viciously shut.)

Raven: (voice over) The gem shall be his portal.

(Cut to one hand; the red runes that tell the story of what is to come fade into view. On the next line, pull back slowly to frame the rest of that arm as they float free. Trigon's voice overlays itself with hers and grows steadily in volume.)

Raven, Trigon: (voice over) He comes to claim. He comes to sire

(The same thing happens to her legs.)

The end of all things mortal.

(Extreme close-up of her forehead, on whose gem the demon's crest superimposes itself, then pull back. Her eyes open, allowing two shafts of white light to stream from their sockets toward the ceiling, as the jagged S floats clear of her brow. The symbols that had adorned her motionless body form a large circle around it, just as they did at the end of Part One-this is a flashback to that sequence of events-and the camera pulls back to show her floating above the chamber's huge stone hand. The whirling runes have appeared around waist, head, and feet now; pull back to ground level, where the other four Titans watch dumbstruck.)

(Close-up of Raven's midsection. The spot of light flares up here and spreads, the camera tilting up as it consumes the rest of her, and the infernal swirling vortex materializes high overhead. It descends quickly, smashing the entire pillar to rubble; the shield she put up collapses, allowing the Titans free entry; and Trigon rises from the livid depths. The first thing the four heroes see is one of those mammoth red hands reaching toward the round skylight in the ceiling and curling into a fist; they back up a bit as the demon reaches his full height and turns to face us.)

Trigon: The Earth is mine!

(He spits out a shock wave that vibrates the entire chamber on its way toward the Titans-but instead of being torn apart, they each find themselves protected by a small black shield. It is the sort of thing Raven would do if she were still here. Cut to a rooftop view of Jump City, tranquil under the evening twilight that came too early in Part One. A ball of red light grows in the distance and expands rapidly, tearing the buildings apart with the force of a nuclear warhead. When the screen has entirely filled with the glare, fade in to an outer-space view of Earth and pull back slowly as the instant devastation spreads like wildfire over the entire surface. What remains is a charred, smoldering ball that looks more like a piece of burning coal than a planet capable of supporting several billion people. Fade to black.)

Act One

(Opening shot: an overhead view of a shredded Raven barrier spread out on the rocky ground. It dissipates to expose Beast Boy, unconscious but intact. He sits up to find himself now in the middle of Jump City, which has become as it appeared in Raven's visions-blasted, ravaged, under a fire-red sky. Rubbing his head with a groan, he looks around the place where he has fetched up and cannot even begin to make sense of the apocalypse that has just wrecked the world.)

(The camera shifts to angle itself into the sky, pointing between the ruined buildings that line one street, and tilts down toward the shadowy street. Beast is walking down the block.)

Beast : (softly) I could have done something. I should have found a way.

(He comes around a corner and stops cold with an incredulous stare. The reason is revealed when the camera cuts to behind him and pans slowly across the street-which is filled with city dwellers who have been turned to stone. Now he makes his way through them.)

(Lost in thought and self-recrimination, he almost does not notice the shadow that flits past overhead. It does get his attention, but when he looks up, the source has already gone.)

Beast: Who's there?

(His voice echoes over and over in the silent street; after it has finally died away, a bird flaps slowly down from the rooftops and lights on a chunk of debris. It is a large raven, and its hoarse call-more a croak than a caw-draws his attention. Extreme close-up of one red eye, which blinks and fixes itself straight ahead, very wide; now Beast Boy approaches with caution.)

Beast: Raven?

(The visitor takes flight in a flutter of sets off morphing into an eagle chasing the black bird.)

(The chase moves through several blocks and leads him to a tower standing at a deranged angle. Tilt up along its height, then cut to the rubble at its base; Beast flies over the lot and sets to soar the steel and glass framework. In no time he is at roof level land hauling himself up, but his quarry is nowhere to be found. He steps to the edge, regarding the wrecked metropolis silently, and the camera cuts to a long shot of the tower and pans very slowly across the area.)

(Back to the roof; with a heavy sigh, the lone Titan drops to his knees as if all the bones have been removed from his legs. Cut to behind him and pull back slowly.)

Beast: Raven...

(A fracture opens in the roof's surface and races across to snap off the section he is kneeling on. This thunders toward the street; he leaps back toward the building with all his strength, but comes up short and begins a screaming fall toward the remains of the pavement. In close-up, his hand strains madly for a grip but gets only air-and then Cyborg's left snaps down to seize the wrist. Cut to the big man at the edge.)

Cyborg: I gotcha!

(Beast can only smile weakly in relief as he is reeled in and put back on his feet.)

Cyborg: I'm glad you made it. (Starfire lands behind him with Robin beside her.)

Starfire: Beast Boy... (hugging him) ...you are unharmed.

(Her embrace is powerful enough to squeeze all the air out of his lungs and turn his face bright blue; she does not notice as hers flushes deep red. When she finally lets go, he takes a moment to catch his breath and stretch out his collar before speaking.)

Beast: I saw something out there, in the city. I don't know what but it led me here.

Robin: It led all of us here... (sadly, ) ...almost all of us.

(Cut briefly to their perspective of the city, then back to them.)

Cyborg: We're the only ones left.

Starfire: But how is this possible? How have we survived?

Beast Boy: It was Raven. She saved us. Back at the Tower, when Raven knocked us out, the last thing I heard was her voice. She said, "Be safe." (Cut to the others; he continues o.c.) She did something. Something that protected us from Trigon.

Cyborg: As if it matters.

(Beast is referring to the battle between the Titans and Slade's flaming army in Part One-the fight that came to a grinding halt when Raven made up her mind to leave her friends. Cut to a long shot of the roof.)

Cyborg: Look around. There's nothing left. What's the point? (Close-up of Robin; zoom in slowly.)

Beast: Hope.

(Close-up of each of the other three faces in turn. Now the fire returns to his voice.)

Beast: (from o.c.) That's the point. As long as we're still here, we still have a chance. (Back to him.) And that's why we're going to keep fighting. (Pull back; he holds out one hand, palm down.) For Raven.

(Overhead view, close-up of his hand; Starfire reaches in and lays hers on it.)

Starfire: (from o.c.) For Raven. (Roof level; Cyborg steps up.)

Cyborg: (adding his hand) For Raven.

Robin: (adding his) For Raven.

(There is a great flash of white, which subsides to show a ball of crackling black energy surrounding the four sets of fingers. It explodes a moment later, pushing them all away; now they study their hands wonderingly.)

Cyborg: Okay, that felt weird.

Robin: Raven may not have been able to stop Trigon from coming- (holding up hand, black fireball nestled in it) -but she left us a way to fight him. (Slow pan across the others; he continues o.c.) She gave us some of her power.

Starfire: And it grows stronger when we stand as one.

(Back to the masked teen's face, whose mouth has turned up into a calculating smile, and zoom in slowly-he knows this could be the Titans' biggest ace in the hole ever. Dissolve to a stretch of slowly flowing lava whose surface is broken by a few random rocks and tilt up to frame the Tower's island in Jump City Bay. Trigon has gouged out the central portion of the building and seated himself on the remains as if they were a throne; the horizontal arms of the T serve as armrests. Resting, he breathes deeply of the foul air, and close-ups of one arm and one cloven hoof show him to be growing a bit.)

(Starfire emerges from the light of the blighted sun and hurls a flurry of starbolts at the recumbent demon, Robin leapfrogs across the rocks in the bay to scale a handful of discs at him, and Beast Boy-as a pterodactyl-flies Cyborg in so he can launch a missile attack. The shots come from the muzzles in his chest and shoulders, seen but not used during the battle outside the Tower in Part One.)

(None of these three strikes has any discernible effect on Trigon except to annoy him slightly. Now all four hit the deck, Beast Boy back in human form and Cyborg's launchers tucked away.)

Beast: Trigon! Get up and fight you big bastard! (Pause.)

Trigon: Insignificant insects.

Robin: (to the others) I think it's time to hit him hard.

Beast Boy: Duhh. Yet I don't know all of Raven's powers. I've read how do a few but not everything.

Starfire: I have used Raven's powers once before. They are controlled by emotions. The more we feel, the more energy is released.

Cyborg: In other words, get angry!

(She is, of course, referring to the out-of-body experience she shared with Raven in "Switched." Cut to a waist-level pan across the four Titans as they join hands in line; black sparks fly when each contact is made, and an overhead view shows a ring of energy circling their feet. It spreads outward slightly while Raven's borrowed power surges through their bodies, snapping them stiff as boards and outlining them in white light. They are carried into the air; cut to a close-up of Robin and pull back on the next line to frame the group.)

Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Starfire: Azarath Metrion Zinthos!

(A ball of energy appears at the center of their formation and explodes into a huge black snake that could eat every python on the planet for lunch-if any survived Armageddon, that is. Lashing out across the lava-filled bay, it connects squarely with Trigon's chest to throw him into a roaring paroxysm. Profile of the group, panning slowly ahead, then of Trigon's chest as it continues to take the full brunt of their assault. Finally it subsides; he slumps forward in his makeshift chair, knocked out-but his mouth twists into a cruel smile and he opens all four eyes.)

Trigon: You may think it wise to attack me while I gather my strength- (Cut to the Titans, aghast; he continues o.c.) -but as you can see, not even a farewell blessing from my daughter can help you. (Back to him; eyes blaze.) Be gone.

(A quadruple beam flashes out, individual rays interlacing before they reach the Titans. Just as in the prologue, though, Raven's powers assert themselves to form a shield that keeps them from being instantly obliterated. They are instead flung backward by the force of the impact and end up sailing toward an area of Jump City that has been bulldozed flat. This is the space Slade cleared out during his demolition spree in "The Prophecy"; now, however, the location of the old library is marked by a wide crater in the ground.)

(The Titans drop into this hole and land in the remains of the chamber in which all this madness began. Cyborg is first to stand up, rubbing his head and groaning at the realization that their ace in the hole was no good against Trigon's straight flush.)

Cyborg: Guess that wasn't angry enough.

Robin: I don't know what to do now.

Starfire: Please, I wish to leave.

(Close-up of the four, Beast eyeing a flight of stairs-the ones that led Raven up to the top of the hand pillar.)

Cyborg: (bitterly) And go where? The whole world is toast. And the only person who'd know what to do is...

(On the end of this line, cut to the shape shifter, who has begun to climb the stairs. Back to the despondent big man after he finishes; zoom in slightly.)

Cyborg: We could really use her help right now.

(Overhead view of him, Robin, and Starfire, pulling back to frame Beast Boy as he reaches the top step.)

Beast: I know what we saw...

(Cut to behind him, panning ahead slightly to show the blackened pit where the pillar had stood.)

Beast: ...but I still can't believe it. (Profile.) It just doesn't feel like Raven's really gone.

Slade: (from o.c.) That's because she isn't.

(Those four words shake the quartet out of their deep blue funk in a flash. Cut to just behind Starfire and zoom in on an unlit arch that once led to one of the chamber's many connecting passages, then snap to the total blackness beyond it. The one-eyed psychopath himself steps forth-stripped of his forehead mark by Trigon at the end of Part One.)

(He shows no response, but continues his steady advance toward the camera. Fade to black.)

Act Two

(Opening shot: an overhead view of the smashed chamber. Zoom in, cut to a floor-level view of the standoff, then tilt up from Slade's feet to his head. The tension is broken when Robin brings out a double handful of birdarangs, leaps high, and hurls them in one lightning-fast barrage. They merely bounce off the armor and embed themselves in the floor; Slade slips nimbly to one side only to find Cyborg charging at him. He cannot block this hit and is driven backward into the wall-and the changeling, showing no mercy, lays another one on him even before he can straighten up.)

(The dust clears to show Slade doing something very much out of character: toppling forward to end up on all fours, as the camera cuts back)

Beast Boy: Guys, wait. (Camera cuts back to Slade)

Robin: (from" o.c.") What's the matter, Slade? (Beast Boy comes up to Slade's side; Robin is exposed behind him.) Giving up already?

Slade: Sorry to disappoint you, Robin, but I'm not here to fight. (Getting a hand up from Beast standing up) I'm here to help.

Beast Boy: I know but what sort of help?

Slade: (dusting himself off) That Raven can still be saved.

(He is immediately plowed away by Starfire and slammed into the wall again. Now she holds him with one hand and gets a starbolt ready in the other.)

Starfire: You will not dishonor our friend with your trickery!

Cyborg: (bringing up sonic cannon) Whatever you're selling, we're not buying! (Close-up of Slade's face; zoom in slowly.)

Slade: Think of me what you will. But what Trigon did, even I wouldn't wish on this world. (Pull back.)

Cyborg: It's a little late for "I'm sorry"!

Slade: You mistake my generosity for regret, Cyborg. (Extreme close-up of his eye.) I only offer my assistance because it suits me.

Beast:( comes next to Starfire) Let him go Star.

Starfire: (cooling down, letting him go) But we saw Raven become the portal.

(Cut to a close-up of his lowering feet on the end of this, then back to the group.)

Starfire: She was destroyed!

Slade: Raven has fulfilled the prophecy of her birth. (Long shot.) That part of her existence is complete. But another part still remains... (Back to him.) ...for the moment.

Robin: Why are you doing this? What's in it for you?

Slade: (passing them) My reasons are my own. Do you want your friend back or not?

Cyborg: Just tell us where she is, and we'll take it from there.

Slade: There will be no "we." (He stops.) This is a journey only one of you may take. (Shift to frame them over his shoulder.)

Robin: No deal! Raven's our friend. All of us are going! (Pan to Slade's face.)

Slade: Then your friend is doomed to oblivion. You fail to realize, Trigon is all-seeing. His mind can be at any place, at any time. For us to succeed, Trigon's attention must be occupied.

Cyborg: And how do you expect us to do that? (Long shot; pull back.) We already tried fighting him; look where it got us! (Back to Slade.)

Slade: It's the end of the world. (turning to face them) Did you think it would be easy?

(Cut to the four, panning slowly across.)

Slade: (from o.c.) I don't expect you to win. I don't even expect you to live-only endure. (Close-up of Robin.)

Robin: (sullenly) I'll go with you. (Pull back to Beast Boy interupting)

Beast: No, I'll go.

Starfire: Beast Boy, no.

Beast: If there's even the slightest chance to save Raven, what choice to we have? Besides, I know Slade better than anyone, we can work together, for the most part.

(This deflates his three friends considerably-he has a point and they know it. Zoom in slowly on Slade standing behind them.)

Slade: The journey to this world has taken much of Trigon's power.

(An empty patch of floor; he holds one steel fist into view.)

Slade: (from o.c.) With this, you might be able to survive.

(During this line, he opens the fingers to expose a gold ring. In close-up, we see that it bears a number of red inscriptions.)

Slade: (from o.c.) It's a ring of Azar- (The three sidelined Titans.) -forged by the same order that imprisoned Trigon. (Back to him.) I know from experience that it works.

[Note: See the "Fractured" transcript for explanation on the meaning of this name.]

(Starfire plucks the ring from his hand and eyes it with great concern as Beast crosses to her.)

Beast: I know you all can do it.

(He gives her a long hug-quite possibly the last one they will ever share.)

Cyborg: It may get ugly, but don't worry. We'll keep him busy.

Robin: He won't know what hit him. (Extreme close-up of Slade's eye.)

Slade: Your goodbyes are really quite touching- (Pull back.) -but we have work to do.

(He strides away; Robin and Beast are face to face and shake hands,)

Beast: Good luck to you guys.

Robin: Go get her back. (As he hands Beast one off his batton swords for the expedition.)

Slade: (from o.c., sharply) Logan.

(. Slade descends into the pit exposed by the destruction of the hand pillar; Beast Boy is about to follow him, but stops at the lip and gives the other three a final look.)

(Down he goes, leaving the trio wondering if they will ever see him again as the footsteps fade and the wind moans through the city. Cut to within the shaft, which is very wide with a trail circling down along the wall like the spiral staircase that brought the Titans into the chamber to start with. Slade leads Beast Boy toward the unfathomable gloom at the bottom. Dissolve to the pair on the move, now closely following a sheer cliff; far in the distance is some barrier that carries the red mark removed from Slade's forehead. A close-up reveals it to be a set of stone double doors, bound in iron, over which a large hood with eyeholes has been carved. Tilt down to the pair as they reach the threshold.)

Slade: Before we continue, a warning. If we succeed, I can't guarantee you'll like what you find. (Long shot of the ledge on the end of this, then back to Beast.)

Beast: I'll take the chance.

(They heave against the great doors and manage to push them open; white light floods from beyond, filling the screen. From here, fade in to just within the doorway. Once Beast and Slade have opened the doors all the way, they move in and the camera shifts to point ahead of them. At first glance, the space appears to be a long corridor lined with large stone ravens that glow with an unseen orange light. The two travelers step into view and stop-and the camera zooms ahead of them and tilts down to show the chamber in full detail. They are on a ledge that overlooks a vast ravine, the ravens are carved from its walls, and the glow is from the lava that streams down from them to form a boiling river far below. A small rowboat bobs near a landing.)

(Cut to a close-up of Trigon's face, composed in sleep, then to Robin darting up next to Trigon. A flit here, a flit there, and he has slipped unnoticed into the conqueror's outer left ear. He throws explosives inside the monster's ear. This shakes Trigon out of his nap, and he roars in pain and claps hands to head as he stumbles off the Tower and into Jump City Bay.)

(Starfire instantly flies in with Cyborg in tow; after a quick spin to build up steam, she hurls him straight ahead toward the broad crimson chest. Out comes his cannon to score a direct hit-but the beam is reflected back on him and he is propelled away. He gets a second lift from Starfire.)

Starfire: I believe we have obtained his attention.

(Extreme close-up of Trigon's left ear, from which Robin emerges next to his teammates to the sound of the monster's pained groaning. Pull back across the bay; the Boy Wonder lands on a rock, turning back to Trigon.)

Robin: Is that convincing enough for you!

(Trigon with an ear-to-ear grin. It disappears as Cyborg and Starfire come down next to Robin. The unholy terror stands to his full height, gathers himself, and belches out a solid stream of fire that slices the surface of the lava on is way to the Titans' rock. Smoke billows from the spot, filling the screen, and clears to show them safe behind a translucent red shield. Starfire has rested her hands on Robin's shoulders, and something shines on the right knuckles.)

Trigon: You carry a ring of Azar.

(Extreme close-up of the hand, on whose ring finger it gleams faintly.)

Trigon: (from o.c.) No doubt a relic from a former minion. (Back to him; he sits on the Tower.) It matters not. (Extreme close-up: his eyes.) Fighting you is beneath me.

(They glow red; in response, his mark fades in, very large, on the rock at the three Titans' feet. Sparks crackle up from the rune and envelop them; yells of pan and red flashes accompany the capture, and the camera cuts to a close-up of Starfire and pans to the ends of her wildly waving hair. Flames race along its length-and from them comes an exact duplicate of the young Tamaranean, with two differences. One, her eyes burn bright red; two, she is rendered entirely in shades of gray and black. A similar copy of Robin starts to climb out of his back, while a monochrome bionic arm reaches forth from Cyborg's chest.)

(Long shot of the rock; the group is lost under the infernal red light show, which culminates in a terrific flash and a shot of the three real McCoys tumbling back to the surface. Extreme close-up of one of Trigon's eyes as it stops glowing, then cut to the wall of smoke and fumes and zoom in. This clears to fully show Cyborg's opposite number crouched down, while the other two are behind him as silhouettes. The big gray man straightens up slightly with a foul little smirk; our heroes can only stare aghast as all three get to their feet.)

Trigon: I may be the source of all darkness... (Cut to the two groups; he continues o.c.) ...but you are your own worst enemies.

(Evil Cy is first to move, leaping into the good guy' face in slow motion.)

Evil Cy: Raven wasn't the only one with a bad side.

(Normal speed: he delivers a walloping uppercut that lifts Cyborg far off his feet, then jumps up after him. Now Starfire's alter ego flies toward her with red starbolts burning in both hands, and Robin's double jumps in for an attack. The two Titans circle around each other as the evil ones close in; finally both Starfires take to the air and the Robins face off. Evil Robin charges and throws flashbangs in Robin's eyes as they are about to get into a fist fight as it fades to black.)

(Fade in to the upper reaches of the cavern in which Beast Boy and Slade found the river of lava, and tilt down to show them on the landing. The boat has been pulled in close so they can board.)

Beast: So why did you do it? For money? Status? (They set off.) Those dark powers? (Close-up; Slade poles along while Beast works the rudder.)

Slade: Not everything is so cut and dry, Logan.

(Zoom in on Beast during the second half of his line, then cut to a slow pan along the magma spouts set in the stone ravens.)

Beast: (from o.c.) Selling out our world for your own personal gain seems pretty cut and dry to me. (Tilt down to the river; the boat glides into view.)

Slade: With or without me, there was no stopping this.

Beast: But you played a part. And just like everything else you've ever done, it's made people suffer.

Slade: It's what I do best.

(He brings the boat to a quick stop, the camera pulling back as he does so, and a cut to the wall shows why-many of the fire creatures he commanded in Part One are emerging from the flowing lava falls. More break the surface of the river to surround the craft, whose crew jumps in two different directions just before burning, tentacle-like arms shoot toward their position.)

(Beast Boy whips out and extends the sword as soon as his feet are planted firmly on an unstable rock. It flips over flat, nearly dumping him into the rapids as he lays about to dispatch several of the attackers. He jumps on one end of the rock to lever the other one sharply up; it is hit hard, but he clambers up and hops away just before the next strike pulverizes the formation into dust. Dodging or parrying a forest of lashes, he brings one boot sole down smack into a blazing torso before coming down on another rock and swinging his staff with renewed fury. One assailant after another gets a deathblow; the last one falls apart to show Slade at a distance, facing off against his own opposition.)

(He still has the pole with which he propelled the boat, and he leaps high and twirls it to deflect the appendages that hiss toward him. The jump brings him right back down to the same spot, after which he hops nimbly to another rock and bashes away the rest of this gang. Next he plunges the end of the shaft into the lava and pole-vaults onto a high rock; Beast morphes into a jaguar to join him, and the survivors close in from all sides in a cacophony of hisses and growls. One huge swing of Slade's pole puts several down, and hero and villain back up toward each other.)

Slade: Only a minor setback. Nothing two old friends can't handle.

Beast: Too bad the friendship isn't gonna last.

(Lashes from every angle force both to jump for it. Slade comes down on a floating rock and blocks a strike only to have his pole wrapped up; a tug-of-war ensues, in which the attacker gets a second grip on the shaft. Slowly, ever so slowly, the armor-plated heels are dragged toward the molten rock that laps unhurriedly at the edge of his perch. Behind him, Beast Boy's leap carries him to a wall and bounces him over the snapped-tight arms; the youth lands on one and runs back along its length toward the body. He hurls himself toward the sky and brings one foot down for a killer flying kick that instantly disintegrates the creature, freeing Slade from its hold.)

(Slade looks in Beast's direction, perhaps showing a tiny gleam of genuine respect, but soon has to turn his attention to the squad moving in from down the river. Small stone pillars line both banks; the reluctant partners hop up onto these and bound easily from one to the next before going up for an incredible leap and a series of swings that gradually shatter the blazing specters into little more than embers. When they come down, however, the next wave has already moved in, but a few deft strikes put them away. Shoulder to shoulder, Beast Boy and Slade race downriver and deliver a devastating one-two combination that drops a singleton, then jump away again.)

(This trajectory carries them to the riverbank, where they thrust their weapons into another line of demons. The ends are jammed into the cliff face for leverage so they can pull off a long string of side-by-side somersaults and come down to drive their boot heels into the ones still in one piece. Now, taking a page from Starfire and Robin's book, Slade seizes Beast's wrists and swings him around for a brain-busting roundhouse kick on one of them, driving it into the others and vaporizing most of them. The sword and pole are yanked free of the wall where they lodged, and their users unleash a merciless string of blows to reduce the opposition to cinders. When the brutal frenzy ends, we see a close-up of the back-to-back fighters-and, as the last embers drop, the camera pulls back to show them alone on a ledge, with not a single enemy left standing.)

(Cut to a close-up of Beast and track around him to bring Slade into view. Far below, the fragments of one fire demon reassemble themselves from the lava currents and rise to attack. However, instead of pitching in to defeat it, Slade ducks to one side and lets Beast do the dirty work. The bits fall to the ground and extinguish themselves.)

Beast: Didn't we have a deal?(He says sarcastically)

Slade: Old habits die hard.

(Another one rears up behind him and lashes out, pasting him across the jaw and knocking his mask loose. The angle of the hit leaves his head turned away from the camera; cut to a close-up of the steel covering as it bounces across the stone, then to Beast. He charges and lets loose electrical bolts, instantly ripping the creature apart, and Slade straightens up with effort as the fragments drop away. His back is still us, but in due time he slowly turns to look straight on.)

(For the first time since this series began, we can see the face behind the black/red-orange mask that has posed such a threat to the Titans. Or rather, what remains of it. There is only a fleshless skull, cracked and stained an ulcerous gray as if it had been buried for years. Its empty right eye socket glares meaninglessly at nothing, while a fleck of red fire shines in the left; the eye we saw on that side was perhaps only a dummy contact lens. Below the missing nose, the exposed teeth are set in a grimace of unchanging, unadulterated fury. Zoom in slowly and snap to black.)

Act Three

(Opening shot: a patch of the lava river. Tilt up slowly to a long shot of Beast Boy and Slade, face to face on their ledge, then cut to the loose mask as he reaches to pick it up.)

Slade: (from o.c.) I'd rather you hadn't seen that.

Beast: I've seen worse.

(Back to him on the end of this; he fixes the mask back in place, and the fake left eye reestablishes itself.)

Slade: It's really only a temporary condition. (Now beast has recovered the sword.)

Beast: So what your neither living or dead?

Slade: (walking past him) Let's just say I'm currently incomplete. Time is running out. We must keep moving.

Beast: I don't think so. Unless I get some answers- (retracting/putting away the sword) -you're on your own.

(Slade stops and turns to face him as grating hisses float up from river level. A camera shift shows a forest of arms rising from here-the fire demons are regrouping, it seems. Close-up of Slade, zooming in slowly; on the next line, dissolve a shot of him in his Season Two lair. He stands over the slumped form of Terra, who wears the armored suit he provided for her in "Aftershock." When the transition occurs to this flashback, the rest of his line is delivered as a voice over. The scene appears as it would if a soft filter had been installed on the camera lens.)

Slade: It seems my luck with apprentices is most unfortunate.

(The corrupted blonde comes up with glowing eyes and fist, knocking him from their high rock perch amid an explosion. The sound of the blast is greatly muted. Down he goes, plunging toward the lava lake at the bottom of the cavern.)

Slade: (voice over) Terra's betrayal should have been my demise.

(Cut to a point a bit farther up; flames wash up from below, marking his splashdown, and we then see his loose mask slowly engulfed by the rising tide. Snap to black, against which a ring of fire blazes up.)

Slade: (voice over) But I got lucky.

(The light comes up to show him on a patch of rock, kneeling in the ring, and a close-up reveals what is left of him. He has recovered his mask, whose lower half has disintegrated along with his gloves, and all the exposed flesh has burned away; he regards the bare bones incuriously.)

Slade: (voice over) Someone was looking out for me that day.

(On the next line, the camera pulls back and tracks around him to show him cradled in Trigon's immense hand, held at chest level so that his head is out of view. However, Slade is now fully visible from the waist up, revealing that the lower half of his chest is gone to leave only the spine holding him together.)

Trigon: Heed my command, and I will return what you have lost.

(Tilt up to the four-eyed, malevolently smiling face, then cut back to Slade's leftovers. Now a few holes can be seen under the armor plates on the arms. The demon's mark appears on the steel forehead and the ruined body straightens up, glowing white and orange.)

Slade: (voice over) It was a simple arrangement, actually. (Close-up of the arms; they are covered with new armor.) Do a few chores, and I get back my flesh and blood.

(His mask regenerates itself.)

Slade: (voice over) And I must admit- (Zoom in on the eye, through the pupil.) -the fringe benefits were most enjoyable.

(On the end of this, the gleam within the black spot resolves into a shot of him with Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire caught up as in "The Prophecy." That is, flaming tendrils extend from his hand to tie up each of them. A wipe past a pillar changes the view to the end of "Birthmark"; he holds the raggedly clothed, heavily inscribed Raven at the edge of a precipice as the full moon blazes behind them. Zoom in on his profile then wipe to a shot of him leading his incendiary troops into battle against the Titans in Part One. Another wipe, and he stands up against a black background with both hands on fire.)

Slade: (voice over) Pity things didn't work out as planned.

(He turns to face into the darkness, in which Trigon's eyes open to give him a hard glare, and is caught up in a shower of red sparks-the energy that stripped him of his powers. Close-up of the right hand, on which can be seen the ring of Azar he gave to the Titans, then zoom in slowly on the frozen face as the mark disappears from its forehead. His eye pops saucer-wide and his entire image disintegrates to leave the screen black. We now know what experience he was referring to when he gave the ring to Starfire.)

Slade: (voice over) The moral of this story?

(Fade in to him and Beast, making their way through a new cavern, and pan to follow them.)

Slade: Never make a deal with an inter-dimensional demon without a little protection. (Beast stops.)

Beast: You didn't just bring me down here just to save Raven. I'm also here to help save you. (Slade stops as well and turns to him.)

Slade: A deal's a deal.

(Dissolve to a patch of rock and tilt up to show it floating in Jump City Bay; the Tower and the city proper are in the distance. From here, cut to a street in which Robin and Evil Robin battle out endlessly. Neither giving an inch, as both can't seem to take the other down.)

(Now the camera cuts to a stretch of the bay, not far from the shoreline, and pans to keep a distant streak in view as it arcs over the tumbled buildings. In close-up, it is revealed to be Cyborg, who crashes down on a rooftop and then rolls over its edge; the patch he hit cracks from the impact and then collapses after him. At ground level, he pushes the mass away and starts to get to his feet-but a very familiar yell of rage is heard from above and the camera tilts up to follow his eyes. Evil Cy has launched himself as high into the air as his bionic legs will carry him, and he is on his way down to deliver a little more pain on top of the hit that landed Cyborg here in the first place.)

(The big gray man comes down with enough force to buckle half the street, but Cyborg manages to knock him away. A brief face-off gives way to a trade of savage blows, ending with the real Titan being knocked well backward to skid out on his face. As he gets up with a growl, he glances toward his left shoulder; in extreme close-up, we can see that the circuit panel has been partly broken away from the underarm. A few sparks crackle in the gap. Pull back.)

Evil Cy: (from o.c.) Thirty-five. (Cut to him, not far away.) That's how many weak spots you have. That was number eleven.

(He extends one hand, palm up, and flicks the fingers toward himself in the classic martial-arts gesture-"bring it on." Accepting the invitation, Cyborg leaps to his feet and instantly locks up in a close-quarters grapple; it comes to a quick end when he is slammed to the pavement and flung bodily into a building, screaming all the way.)

(Cut to the two Robin's fighting in hand to hand combat with neither giving in. Punch after punch, kick after kick, staffs being used, marble bombs, everything but the kitchen sink.)

(Cut to Starfire in flight, throwing enough Tamaranean screwballs to strike out every batter in the National League. Evil Star follows a long, graceful curve that carries her neatly through the entire fusillade, and there is a blinding flash as their energized fists swing into each other. A few more blows cancel out, after which Evil Star slips in a sucker punch that drops her toward a gap between two rocks in the bay. As she charges, the green-eyed flyer gets herself under control and stares fearfully up at the approaching duplicate; a few punches, which she dodges, and she is on the move again over the lava.)

(Red starbolts explode all around Starfire and clear to show her intact and preparing a counterstrike. Now Evil Star is the one who must take evasive action in order to avoid being shot down. A high-intensity eye blast lashes toward her and, after a slight aim correction, hits home in the gut, driving her into the bay. Smoke boils up from the lava as Starfire lands on a nearby rock-and then it clears to show Evil Star standing on one of her own, completely unhurt.)

Evil Star: Are you worried about Beast boy? Should I tell Trigon where he is?

Starfire: You will do no such thing!

(Both girls lift off at full speed and resume their brawl, which goes on at such a high altitude that they are visible as only a pair of bright streaks in the lurid red sky. As they zoom over Jump City, the camera tilts down to frame Cyborg and his twin, grappling anew. Evil Cy forces Cyborg's arms away and lands a punch to the weak spot under his right; the follow-up blow, a haymaker of an uppercut, throws him as high as the rooftops and dumps him at the end of the block.)

(Sparks crackle all over Cyborg's chest armor as he struggles to stand amid the fresh rubble. His enemy leaps incredibly high and unloads a burst from his own sonic cannon. The beam is red rather than the usual blue, and Cyborg hurls himself away just in time to keep from taking the hit. A couple of flips carry him down the street and out of range for the moment.)

(Cut to an extreme close-up of his left shoulder; the circuit panel flips open to expose the missile launchers he used against Trigon in Act One.

(Pull back as his other shoulder and chest panel do likewise, the damage under his arms repairing itself. He throws every shot he has down the block, completely hiding Evil Cy from sight due to all their explosions, and heaves a relieved sigh. The respite ends instantly when the two monochrome bionic arms launch out of the smoke clouds and rocket in. Cyborg barely has time for a small gasp before those ten fingers lock onto his wrists and bulldoze him spreadeagle into a wall. In an overhead view, the screen fills with dust; tilt down to ground level as the arms back away. The view clears to show Cyborg embedded in the masonry, and as he drops to his knees with a groan, Evil Cy's limbs reattach themselves. Thrusters built into the fingers have powered the return trip.)

(Close-up of the half-knocked-out big man, doing his best to get vertical.)

Evil Cy: (from o.c.) Go ahead. (Pull back to frame him.) Run crying home to Mommy. Oh, that's right-you don't have a mommy!

(That crack gets the Titan on his feet and moving in for a little payback. He reconfigures both arms into cannons, as he did in "Overdrive," but Evil Cy just stands pat with a vicious half-smile. Close-up of his left arm as he warms it up, after which the camera pulls back and the two heavily armed brawlers pace toward one another as if fighting a pistol duel in reverse. Evil Cy's right is now a cannon as well. In a long shot of the wrecked block, the glare from their shots floats up along with a dense wall of smoke.)

(Tilt up to the sky, where the streaks of Starfire and her evil twin mark their continuing melee. They are literally all over the place, a brilliant flash marking every one of their collisions. The last one is much more intense and marked by a sizable explosion that clears to show Starfire plunging unconscious toward the concrete crazy quilt far below. Ground level: she comes down hard and tumbles away a short distance, and as she gets up to all fours, she finds Evil Star coming down on her in a headlong dive.)

(A flare of green fury at eyes and hands, and the authentic Tamaranean is off the ground, moving fast enough to heat the air just in front of her due to friction. She and Evil Star collide and are immediately lost within a cataclysmic explosion that fills the screen with smoke. Back at ground level, the red-eyed enemy hits the ground standing and skids backward a bit. Starfire's rebound is carrying her toward a building, but she pulls out of it with no room to spare and zeroes in like the world's angriest cruise missile.)

(A red eye blast flashes toward her and does not miss; she pulls clear of the smoke, rubbing her head dazedly, and does not notice the shooter curving back around her. Close-up; she gasps in sudden shock, and the camera pulls back to reveal that Evil Star has caught both her wrists behind her back. She struggles to break the hold.)

Starfire: You remind me of our sister.

Evil Star: I will take that as a compliment. Realize, with you gone, Robin will be all mine!

(Cut to an extreme close-up of that red left eye, just behind Starfire's head, and pan slowly to bring its green opposite number into view. It is closed tight.)

Starfire: He will not!

(The eye pops open, blazing with every bit of righteous fury she can drum up, and the camera pulls back. Starfire finally reverses Evil Star's grip and plants a boot in her back to catapult her toward the ground. Down here, the street fight of the two Robins smashing through cars, the floor, throwing all sorts of gadgets and weapons they have at their dispossel.

Evil Star, meanwhile, is still trying to stand up and figure out who let the marching band practice in her skull. She accomplishes the former after a moment, if not the latter, and rises to dodge a couple of starbolts coming down at her.)

(Cut to a point somewhere up the walls of the vast cavern Beast Boy and Slade have been traveling through. The streams of magma that feed the molten river at its bottom snake down the screen. Tilt down to a bend in the narrow trail as the pair come into view around it. Slade, in the lead, gets dumped over the edge when a patch crumbles under his boot. He slides down the rock face and thumps to a ledge far below, at one end of a bridge over the lava. It takes Beast only a second or two to make a more controlled descent.)

Slade: You must be overjoyed to see me like this. (rubbing arm) Desperate. Weak. Vulnerable.

Beast: I'm here to save Raven, not to show you pity. Which way?

Slade: I'm afraid this is where we part company. (pointing along ledge) You'll find your friend along that path.

Beast: What about you?

Slade: What I seek is in a somewhat hotter place. (He starts across the bridge.)

Beast: That's it? No double-cross? No cryptic threat? (Slade stops.)

Slade: I kept my word. How about a little gratitude?

Beast: Before you go, I think you owe me something.

Slade: What would that be?

Beast: The truth. Why did you kill my parents? Why did you take me under your wing? Why after all these years, you wouldn't destroy me?

Slade:( Shows their past) I was hired to assasinate your parents because they were experimenting animal DNA and using it to save lives. They tested on you because you were dying so young so your father mixed all types of animal cells to try to cure you and succeeded. But in doing so, the people they were working for could never get the cure. Feeling betrayed they hired me. Once I realized I couldn't kill you, i took you. I trained you, made you into something unstoppable. Doing so, you gave me something I thought I could never be, a father. That's why I could never find myself to destroying you myself. Because I always saw you as my son.

(Hearing this made Beast Boy feel distraught. He found humanity in Slade, the person he thought was the most despicable person to live actually has a heart.)

Slade: I don't expect you to forgive me but I hope you could understand. (He hands Beast a bottle of a greenish substance) Even if you find Raven, this will be useful. It just might help destroy Trigon. Just drink it or inject it into yourself and you will gain a power you never experienced before.

(He sets off again, toward a wide vertical fissure cut into the rock at the other end of the bridge,)

Beast:(Whispers) I forgive you.

(He hikes off along the path pointed out for him. The camera is now close enough to show it wending its way through a cave that glows with the same orange light as from the lava flows. Cut to a long shot of him, proceeding steadily along a stretch farther down, and pan ahead of him as the view fades to black.)

(Fade in to just behind a patch of stone and tilt up over its top edge to show Beast's path fading off from the camera. It reaches across an immeasurable chasm filled with jagged stone spikes; orange light glows faintly from deep below, and blazing torches set with distorted human face carvings line both edges. The sky or air or space above the whole scene has the same sick red hue as that in Jump City.)

(Close-up of Beast panning to follow him along this trail, then cut to a head-on view. The last two torches he has passed become fire demons, the same as the ones he and Slade fought on the river, and slink up as best they can for a sneak attack. What they get is a strike almost too fast to follow-a birdarang brought out and back to slash one arm clean off. It falls onto the path and disintegrates, and he now looks both apparitions full in the face.)

Beast: Again with you, don't you know when to quit?

(Tilt up; the next two torches he was about to pass become these same creatures. Out comes a second birdarang, which he joins with the an electrified Triceratop, clobering all of them.)

(The camera pans/tilts slightly to show what awaits the Beast at the end of this road: the remains of a once-imposing building, perhaps a cathedral or temple, whose walls have caved in to expose curving support beams on left and right. The overall effect is to give the illusion of a pair of hands reaching up from below to either cradle the structure or drag it into nothingness.)

(Dissolve to the interior; it is indeed a place of worship, in severe disrepair as suggested in the previous shot. The camera points toward the doors, which are set with Trigon's mark and the same intricate ironwork as on the door that led Beast and Slade to the first stage of this long, strange trip. The doors creak open, giving Beast Boy a good view of the place from the threshold.)

(Letterbox view, top half of the screen: his even footsteps carry him past the smashed columns and oddly intact stained-glass windows. Fullscreen, the camera pointing up from the ground: he approaches the end of the sanctuary. Dead silence.)

Beast: (echoing) Hello? Is someone here?

(Cut to his perspective, roving here and there throughout the half-demolished space, then back to him. Something white swishes past in the shadows at the opposite wall; he sets off running, and it zips by in a new direction through some collapsed rubble. Climbing over the jumble, Beast does his best to keep up. Now the camera shifts to ground level as a pair of legs clad in short white boots pounds past the lens and out of view. Behind them trails the hem of a matching cloak. He slides in, watching their owner go, and the view fades to black.)

(Snap immediately to this person, who tumbles to the ground and huddles under the cloak. Beast steps up, determined to end this game of catch-me-if-you-can here and now, and wraps a handful of fingers around the cloth. Close-up of the fallen form as he pulls hard to expose it in full light-a terrified girl, no more than eight or nine years old, whose face and hair would match that of Raven at this age.)

Beast: (from o.c.) Raven? (Zoom in slowly.)

Young Raven: Who...who are you?

(Fade to black.)

Continued in Part Three


	5. The End part 3

PROLOGUE

(Opening shot: a screen filled with diseased red light, which fades away to leave a close-up of Trigon's mark against a black field.)

Raven: (voice over) Trigon is coming-

(Pull back; it is on the crest of a large raven floating somewhere above Jump City.)

Raven: (voice over) -and the way he gets here is through me.

(The bird caws loudly; fade to that red glow, then in to the five Titans on their nature hike in Part One,

Act One. All are brought up short as the sun blots itself out and the sky darkens, and Raven's body is overwritten with runes and she starts to pass out.)

Beast Boy: Raven!

(Cut to ground level, the camera tilting 90 degrees to frame her face right side up as she keels over. Fade to red, then in to a moment at the end of "The Prophecy"; she stands morosely in the operations center, facing the windows.)

Raven: (turning to face the others) I'm not just a person. I'm a portal.

(Fade to red, then to her in a stop-time city street-a scene from "Birthmark." Slade's boot steps in near the camera, setting the asphalt on fire, and the camera shifts to frame him just down the block, with a wall of flames behind.)

Slade: The portal must be opened!

(One lightning-fast lunge puts him within easy reach of her arm; he seizes her wrist, causing his fire to race up toward her shoulder. Flash to red, which fades away to show a close-up of that same forearm, now glowing with the secret marks. She floats slowly backward from the camera, arms spread and cloak billowing over the fingers of the great stone hand in the chamber far beneath the old library. Now we have jumped to the end of Part One. The characters float away from her body and form their whirling circle around her waist, while the unholy white light blazes from her eyes and midsection. The latter expands to fill the screen, then clears to show that Trigon's swirling portal has formed at the ceiling and is descending to smash the central pillar into dust. Transfixed with horror, the Titans stare at the sheets of fire that tear across the room just in front of them, and Trigon makes his appearance.)

Trigon: The Earth is mine!

(Fade to red, then in to the remains of the chamber after he tore the city apart-a scene from Part Two. In a long shot and slow zoom, a figure can be seen standing at the top of the steps that led up to the now-shattered pillar, and a dissolve to that spot shows Beast here.)

Beast: It just doesn't feel like Raven's really gone.

Slade: (from o.c.) That's because she isn't.

Slade: Raven can still be saved.

(Fade to red, then in to a close-up of Robin.)

Beast: I'll bring her back. (Pull back; he is addressing the other Titans in the chamber.) I promise.

(He and Slade break into a run along the winding trail that will lead them far into the lava caverns below Jump City. Fade to black.)

Starfire: (voice over, echoing a bit) Get up. Get up.

(On the second repetition, fade in to a close-up of her face-she is flat on her back and out cold, but starting to come around, and these words were her thoughts. The camera pulls back as she finally snaps to with a gasp and sits up for a look. She has been bashed into a crater, and a slow pan away from her reveals that the neighborhood is still an everloving mess-but now swirls of infernal red clouds fill the sky, centering over Trigon seated in the ruins of Titans Tower.)

(Back to the thunderstruck Tamaranean, panning away as she turns to look over her shoulder on the start of the next line. Her evil twin-who presumably laid her out like this to begin with-is crouched on the crater's edge and grinning like an idiot.)

Evil Star: Why do you still bother to rise? (standing) We both know that the end has already come.

(She throws a starbolt into the pit. Cut to an overhead view of Starfire, zooming in as she gasps in shock, then flash to the red of its impact and fade to black.)

Act One

(Opening shot: a patch of sky filled with those slowly rotating clouds. Lightning cracks out time after time before a mighty red flash hides the entire screen for an instant; now the center of the formation glows brightly and the camera follows the next bolt down to ground level. It strikes a distant half-toppled building as Robin is knocked backward into view to tumble onto his face. He starts to drag himself up with a labored groan. Cut to the source-Evil Robin, throws flash bombs at Robin blinding him as Evil-Robin whip-lash him with the staff.)

(A last-millisecond sidestep saves Robin from having his head caved in; he then jumps on top of a building, and the two jungle cats tumble away. Zoom in slightly toward a particular bit of the skyline, behind which explosions and smoke clouds roar up. Cyborg races out of the maelstrom, sheer panic written in bold type across his mug, but Evil Cy takes his time walking up to continue the punching match. Those gray circuit panels at the shoulders swing open to expose the same sort of missile launchers Cyborg used in Part Two, and here comes the salvo. Its freaked-out target keeps pounding ahead with every bit of speed he can get out of his souped-up legs, but it is no good and he gets thrown far ahead when the missiles hit the mark.)

(Lifting his head with some effort, he suddenly opens his eyes very wide in surprise. Evil Cy has disappeared from sight, but a moment later he drops in behind the big man and blindsides him with a smashing left hook. Cyborg is propelled into the side of a building, several stories above the ground, and Evil Cy strolls up, chuckling nastily and brushing his hands clean, as Starfire's green streak zooms overhead. She crashes to earth, having taken a king-size hit from Evil Star, and climbs woozily up out of her crater while the latter descends with a giggle.)

Evil Star: I laugh at your pain! Ending your existence is most amusing.

Starfire: This is not the end!

(And with that, she lifts off for a right hook that sends her doppelganger soaring gracelessly backward to smash through two vertical rock slabs before meeting the ground at high speed. Cut to Starfire, who touches down near the site; the camera shakes with a sudden tremor, and we see Evil Star hoisting one of the monoliths and swinging for the fences. It fractures into a pile of boulders upon hitting its target, and the camera shifts to frame Starfire crashing down and Evil Star flying overhead.)

(Cut to a close-up of the green-eyed face, just inches from the surface of the lava in Jump City Bay. She stares wide-eyed up past the camera as it pans across the lava to frame Trigon in the distance, still watching from his seat in the ravaged Tower.)

Trigon: Most amusing indeed. (Close-up; zoom in slowly.) You mortals provide excellent sport-though your fight, like your lives, is pointless.

(Extreme close-up of Starfire's right fist, zooming in slowly. The ring of Azar, which Slade gave her in Part Two to protect them from Trigon's might, has been shifted from ring to little finger. During the next line, pull back to show Evil Star approaching at a very leisurely pace from behind.)

Trigon: (from o.c.) The ring of Azar may shield you from my wrath for now, but you shall soon be defeated by your own personal demons.

(Beaming with the purest malice, the grayscale double raises her hands, palms toward the camera, and warms up a double starbolt to finish the job. Cut to an extreme close-up of Starfire's horror-stricken face and zoom in slowly as the glare throws a bright orange tint over it. From here, cut to a long shot of a different outcropping in the bay; Cyborg is hurled into view and crashes hard against it, causing the whole thing to topple over. A rising growl marks the long-jumping arrival of his clone, and his boots slam into the tumbled rocks to smash them clean through. Dust and gravel clear to show Cyborg on the wrong end of a slow, face-first push toward the same red-hot bath Slade got two seasons ago. Extreme close-up of his straining face.)

Cyborg: Let me go!

(A supreme effort from his tortured muscles drives both back from the edge and bashes Evil Cy into a rock; he is subsequently flung across the waste, and Cyborg fires off a burst from his cannon and hustles in. Then shows the two Robins still fighting but Robin is exhausted as Evil-Rob smiles and pulls off a street sign from its foundation and about to smash Robin with it until he moves out of the way leaving an explosive in his place and blowing up in Evil-Robin's face.)

(After both have rolled o.c., Starfire rockets toward the ground, just ahead of an explosive starbolt barrage from her duplicate, then pulls up sharply through all the smoke. Evil Star walks causally out of the haze and opens fire again; the shots flash past the flying Tamaranean and pass almost close enough to part her hair five ways. As she is about to enter the thick bank of clouds, one final shot roars up and strikes her squarely in the back to drop her out of the sky. She hits the ground hard; pull back to show Cyborg watching the wipeout in total disbelief.)

(He starts toward the point of impact, the motion revealing Evil Cy straightening up at a distance. Back to Starfire, who tries her best to peel herself up as Robin slides across on the wrong end of a brutal beating. A huge shadow falls over him; here comes his opponent. Robin dodge-rolls out of sight among the mess of rocks.

(Star looks over her shoulder; pan slightly that way to frame Trigon in the distance.)

Starfire: We must keep the Trigon occupied. (Cut to Cyborg, walking up, on the next line.)

Cyborg: As long as those all-seeing eyes are looking at us, he won't go looking for Beast Boy.

(He is immediately blasted in the back and pitched flat on his face. Behind him are Trigon's three creations; Evil Cy delivered the shot with his cannon.)

Evil Cy: Wanna bet? (Evil Star takes off; Starfire starts after her.)

Starfire: No!

(She receives only a cruel little grin in response as Evil Star zips up to Trigon's ear.)

Evil Star: (giggling, whispering) They are trying to distract you so Beast Boy can-

Trigon: I know.

Robin: (flabbergasted, to Cyborg) He knows?

Cyborg: He knows. (Starfire rejoins them.) He's just been toying with us.

(Cut to behind the trio and pan slowly to bring Trigon into view.)

Trigon: I was aware of this rescue mission before your small minds had even conceived it. (Close-up.) And I have known from the beginning that your plan presents no threat.

(He gets out of his seat and stands up to full height, his antlers almost brushing the spiraling clouds overhead.)

Trigon: You fail to comprehend the depth of my power. (The three Titans; he continues o.c.) And you fail to understand the departure of your friend. (Back to him.) Some remnant of my daughter may yet exist- (Extreme close-up: his eyes.) -but the Raven you knew is lost forever.

(Cut to an extreme close-up of the side of the pre-teen Raven's head, pulling back slowly, as seen at the end of Part Two. She turns a bit to give a clear view of one wide, frightened eye.)

*** All lines marked with an asterisk are delivered by this incarnation of the Titan, and all stage directions follow the same convention until further notice. ***

* Raven: Who... (Dissolve to a head-on shot; pull back a bit more.) ...who are you?

(Pull back again. She and Beast Boy are still in the ruins of the cathedral in which he found her, and he has her cloak in hand.)

Beast: It's okay. I'm your friend.

(The little girl whirls into a panicked run.)

Beast: Raven!

(He goes after her; she clambers over a pile of rubble, and the camera cuts to outside as she dashes down a flight of stairs on this side of the building. His course ranges through the scatter of masonry fragments that line the slope on one side. Cut briefly to Raven's rapidly shifting perspective of the area-the staircase is very long and leads down to a bridge over the chasm in which this place is situated-then back to her. Beast is pulling even now.)

Beast Boy: Wait! I'm not going to hurt you!

(He looks ahead and immediately puts one hand on the flagstones as a brake. The reason becomes apparent when the camera cuts briefly to his perspective-he has reached the edge of nothingness, and a few pebbles clatter in to make the point. Raven, having the advantage of being on the stairs, is able to reach the bridge; Beast corrects his own course and resumes the pursuit.)

(On the far side, the chase moves into a cavern. Cut to inside it as Beast Boy enters, ducking low as he does so and finding the ceiling barely high enough to accommodate him. He looks here and there and is met with the sight of a forest of thick stone columns that project partway up from the floor. His target, meanwhile, is ducking into a niche that Mother Nature has carved into one wall; she backs up as far as she can and huddles there fearfully.)

Beast Boy: (looking/reaching in) Please! I just want- (She kicks him.) Ow!

(He hops backward, clutching his hurt knee, and flops onto his back. This leaves her cloak wide open in his free hand; she snatches it away and is off like a shot. When Beast looks up, he sees her-now wearing the garment again-bounding along the tops of those stone columns with an agility that would rival even his own. However, a misstep sends her sliding over the edge of one of them, and she tumbles back to the floor in a tangle of arms, legs, and cloak. Once back on her feet, she looks around and lets off a small gasp; an instant later, Beast Boy leaps down to face her. She slides/scrambles back to the wall as he advances toward her again.)

Beast: Raven, it's me, Beast Boy. Remember?

* Raven: I'm lost.

(Rather than being a complaint, this line comes out as a simple, desperate statement of fact. She has ended up in a sitting position.)

Beast Boy: I know. (He kneels to her level.) But I've found you. You don't need to be afraid anymore. I can help you-

(He holds out one hand. Close-up of her, tilting slowly up from chest to face as she regards the fingers uncertainly.)

Beast Boy: (from o.c.) -but you have to let me.

(A few tears gather in her eyes while she turns this whole situation over as fast as her mind will allow. Close-up of the green-gloved hand; after a long pause, she reaches into view and places her own small one in its palm. Pull back to frame both, panning slowly across the cavern, and fade to black.)

(Snap immediately to the back of Slade's head and pull back slightly to frame a new scene. He is staring into a space whose far end is totally lost in the inky gloom. Head-on view; he stands on a narrow ledge, high up on a cliff, and hurls himself from it. The leap carries him to a distant outcropping, which breaks loose under his feet and slides down the rock face, carrying him with it. As he plunges ever downward, he loses his balance and is bounced to and fro by other falling rocks; when he finally hits the ground, his mask drops off and scrapes a short distance across the stone. Retrieving it, he leans back in the shadows for a moment's rest and then resumes his travels.)

(He arrives at the top of a flight of stairs. Cut to behind him and pan across this new area: a heretofore unexplored bend in the lava river, spanned by a bridge whose other end gives onto a small landing. Here is a set of double doors, inscribed with Trigon's red mark and guarded by a muscular gray figure whose chest carries the same brand. It carries a fearsome double-ended weapon; at one end is a blade similar to that of a medieval poleaxe, while the other is equipped with a head whose blade curves in a wide arc, perpendicular to the shaft. The guard's entire head is encased in a steel helmet that totally hides all facial features. Cut to a close-up of the doors, tilting down to frame the figure in close-up on the next line. The voice is male, deep, gravelly, and reverberating within the metal enclosure.)

Guard: The hollow journey of your vacant vessel ends here. What you seek cannot be reclaimed.

Slade: (crossing bridge) Perhaps.

(Close-up; now he pus his mask back on to cover his skull face with its one red eye.)

Slade: But it's not like I have anything left to lose.

(The huge gray figure advances threateningly. It has at least three feet on everyone's favorite psychopath, who tries a punch only to get bashed away onto his back. Up comes the poleaxe head; cut to an overhead view of the truly surprised Slade and zoom in on his face.)

(From here, cut to a rock island floating in Jump City Bay. Something hits the ground at an obscenely high speed, and a close-up zoom reveals said something to be Cyborg, who climbs out of the hole with sparks running all over his body. His counterpart steps up with a malice-soaked little smile.)

Evil Cy: Boo-yah.

(Yank him up; throw him to the ground; jump high and stomp him full force; yank him up again; toss him into a rock to collapse it. Pan to another area, where the Robin's are squaring off-ours sword fight with flips and kicks galore. The latter leaps at the former only to get plucked out of the air and flung against a rock face; he comes up as a velociraptor and charges again.)

(Tilt up to the sky, where the explosions of red starbolts play among the clouds. Above them, Starfire is trying desperately to keep from being shot down by pulling every fancy flying trick she can remember. Finally getting in the clear, she responds with a vicious barrage-but her aim is hopelessly foiled by the clouds and Evil Star emerges untouched. A quick gasp from the shooter, and she is hit dead on with a flying tackle. Close-up of her; on the next line, Evil Star rises in front, pushing her away with one hand.)

Evil Star: You do not even belong on this world!

(She warms up her other hand for the finishing stroke. Extreme close-up of the Tamaranean's bug-eyed face; the blast roars directly into it and she plunges unconscious to the rock. In a long shot of the area, her high-impact touchdown throws up a large burst of green light and a great deal of smoke that attracts Cyborg's attention.)

Cyborg: Starfire!

(Behind him, Robin falls behind him.)

Robin: I didn't expect me to be this difficult. (He gets himself untied.)

Cyborg: You're not. (Robin stands up.) I could kick your butt any day of the-

(He lets the sentence hang unfinished as his whole face goes slack. Some thundering piece of inspiration has just come to him, and judging from Starfire's tone as she approaches from her wipeout, she has had the same idea.)

Starfire: If we cannot defeat ourselves, perhaps we can defeat each other!

(Evil Star flies up behind her; cut to a pan across the two boys as their doubles move up through the rocks. Back to the two girls, panning to Starfire, eyebrows lowering and mouth curving up into the wickedest smile she has ever displayed. Beast Boy and Cyborg throw her a nod before swinging into action.)

Robin, Cyborg: (trading high five) SWITCH!

(They cross the plain, away from their own doubles, and Starfire leaves hers wondering as she flies off. She and Robin pass in midair; now Evil Cy looks here and there, totally confused, and gets a crushing charge from the green-glowing flyer. Evil Star, also at a loss, cannot decide what to do with her checked starbolts before kicks her head her face in, dumping her unceremoniously to the ground. That leaves only Evil Robin still on his feet, in a rapidly advancing shadow.)

Evil Robin: Huh?

(Said shadow marks the approach of the genuine Cyborg, who cracks his knuckles eagerly. The face-off becomes one as the Evil-Robin starts laying out punches but hurts his hand on Cy's body.)

Cyborg: Careful. Might hurt yourself.

(A left hook summarily dislodges those teeth and their owner, who hits the ground in human form and lies there unmoving. Pan away from the area as Starfire's shots ring out across the stone. Evil Cy is on the run, and on the losing end of this battle; he brings up his cannon and tries to aim through all the smoke. Starfire simply charges right through it and lets him have one last starbolt for good measure. This one explodes with the force of a 105-mm howitzer shell, and the glare clears to show Evil Cy tumbling to the ground with his right arm smashed away. Smoke billows from the stump as he crashes down at Starfire's feet.)

(Robin meanwhile, using his shadow games knowledge from Batman is beating his way in avoiding Evil Star's shots. A camera shift reveals that she has brought her eyes into play rather than her hands, but no matter where she aims, she cannot hit this impossibly small moving target. Finally he gets away o.c. and a screech from above makes her look up in surprise. He soon finds himself facing the back of his groaning foe when she straightens up; uncertainty plays across his face for a moment-and then he gives a little push to a nearby vertical slab. It topples flat to crush Evil Star, a little wisp of red flame licking up to mark her end, and the other two enemies evaporate in the same fashion.)

(The three fire trails streak skyward, intertwining as they go, and merge into a single ball of blinding white light from which three shafts flash down. Each Titan is hit in the chest by one of them-the personalities sorting themselves back into the right bodies-and Cyborg throws a little smirk to Beast Boy.)

Cyborg: Told you I could kick your butt.

(A rumble from o.c. ends the joviality in a big hurry; its source is Trigon, who has left the Tower's island and is stomping toward the trio. Starfire backs quickly up to the boys.)

Trigon: Your victory has no meaning. (Close-up.) You merely prolong your suffering. The rule of mortals has ended! (holding out one hand) This world belongs to me!

(On the end of this line, the camera tilts down to ground level as he digs the clawed fingers of his other hand into the stone and rakes them back toward himself. All three Titans back up a good distance, Robin uses a grappling hook to get out of there. Tilt down to point into it as a massed hissing begins to emanate from the depths-and up surges a battalion of the fire creatures that have driven everyone crazy throughout Parts One and Two.)

Cyborg: RUN!

(Starfire picks up Cyborg, and all three bail out as the flaming horde starts after them. Cut to the upper reaches of the underground cavern and tilt down to the lava river and its shore. The bow of the boat Beast and Slade used in Part Two runs aground, followed by the teen's boots landing next to it-he is pulling the craft up out of the tide. A camera shift shows Raven seated at the stern and still quite ill at ease with herself. Now Beast extends a hand to help her out.)

Beast: It's all right.

(She climbs onto him, piggyback, and the two set off.)

Beast: How about a story? To pass the time?

(Cut to the ceiling of the cavern again and tilt down slowly.)

Beast: (from o.c.) This is the story of Raven. (now in view) She was my very good friend. (Dissolve to him, climbing a steep slope.) And she was very brave. Together we fought evil. We beat monsters and villains, and we kept our world safe.

(Another dissolve; overhead close-up in which the youngster cannot help but glance back down at the river that now lies far below.)

Beast boy: But even though she was doing good, Raven was always afraid that deep down inside, she was bad. See, from the day she was born- (Tremor.) -people told her that someday, something terrible was going to-

(Storytime gets put on hold when the quake intensifies and the entire river begins to drain into a fissure that runs from bank to bank. Just as on the surface, a mob of fire demons roars straight up out of the abyss and begins a screeching rush toward the ceiling. They are headed into a freshly opening fault, shaking the whole place again. We have just rewound a few moments from Trigon's latest offensive and witnessed its subterranean point of origin.)

(Boulders fracture and crumble all around the climber and his charge, setting up an avalanche that thunders down the incline toward them. Close-up of Beast Boy's hand, straining to hold its precarious grip on the rock face. The patch he is holding breaks loose after a long moment, and both go sliding down the near-vertical slope, with only those five fingers to provide any braking action and keep them out of free fall. When he brings his other hand up and digs in, Raven clings even tighter to his back. Suddenly he runs into a large outcropping and is stopped short-but inertia jerks her loose and she goes into a plunge, screaming all the way down.)

Beast Boy: Raven!

(She drops away from the camera, her lungs going full tilt and her cloak waving like a torn parachute. Fade to black.)

Act Two

(Opening shot: an overhead view of the molten currents. Raven plunges screaming into view, headed straight toward the gaping fracture in the riverbed, and a second later Beast dives after her. He morphs into a Pterodactyl, he gains speed and catches up to wrap the tiny white figure in a crushing bear hug. One problem down, one to go-how to keep from being burned to a crisp at the bottom of the gorge? He is able to fly up back to the higher level.)

(No time to rest, though, as a boulder thunders down just behind Beast and smashes through the formation. He pounds along the span, Raven holding on for dear life, and the warriors Trigon summoned go hurtling up past the bridge as the rest of it collapses. One frantic soar carrying the properly aged Titan along the high-speed cave-in; finally he hurls himself onto the far landing, and the creatures rise through the ceiling fault to reach the surface.)

Beast: You okay?

(He sets Raven down; cut to a close-up of her downcast, unnerved face.)

Beast Boy: (from o.c.) You didn't get hurt? (Long pause.)

* Raven: Beast Boy, why are you doing this? (Pull back to frame both.)

Beast: You do remember, don't you? (She nods sadly and turns to the cliff.)

* Raven: The story you were telling...I can see it. Bits and pieces. You...our friends...my father...like it was a dream. A nightmare. Whatever it was, it's over.

Beast Boy: Raven, there may still be a way to-

* Raven: Nobody can stop him. I remember that. You came down here for nothing.

Beast Boy: I came down here for you.

* Raven: (angrily, rounding on him, tears in eyes) Why? I can't help. My powers came from him. And now that he's done with me, I don't have them anymore.

(She hangs her head. Long shot of the cliff; she crumples to the ground and softens her tone.)

* Raven: There was...a prophecy, Logan. (He kneels to her.) And it came true. It's all over now.

Beast Boy: Yeah. It's the end of the world. So what? We're still here-still fighting. (Cut to her; he continues o.c.) Still friends.

* Raven: (voice breaking) Look at me, There's nothing I can do! There isn't any hope!

Beast Boy: (from o.c.) Then I guess... (Cut to him.) ...I'll just have to have enough hope for the both of us.

(A smile steals over his face on the end of this line, after which the camera cuts back to Raven. Though her countenance still betrays her extreme pessimism, she has wrapped all ten of her fingers around the five of his offered hand. She allows him to pull her up and climbs onto his back, and the camera tilts up slightly from the pair as they get set for the next climb. Those awful loops of red cloud boil in the sky far above.)

(A brilliant flash marks the scene change-black screen immediately cleaved in two. The top half falls away to expose Slade and the faceless door guard locked in combat-the latter's blade has just sliced through a rock directly in front of the camera. Another savage swing chops through the remains, and Slade flips backward to stop near the riverbank. He comes up for a huge leap, but is caught in one enormous gray hand and pinned down while the other one lifts that vicious weapon. Flames blaze around the poleaxe head, which whistles down for a hit that will open Slade up like a stubborn can of sardines. However, both of his hands lock around the shaft, stopping the blade just short of his head. It is pushed almost close enough to scrape the paint off his mask-but he throws his weight back, knocking down the slab he is pinned against and giving him the leverage he needs to heave the guard into the river.)

(With the enemy out of the way, Slade turns his attention to the stone doors that bar his path. A glutinous bubbling from the shore stops his feet; one huge hand reaches up out of the current, followed by the rest of the helmeted doorman. Lava drips off the legs as he advances implacably across the landing and warms up his poleaxe head again. The armored left fist flashes toward him; close-up as it is caught in one hand and bent cruelly backward. The sound of splintering bone is heard very clearly, and when the guard releases his grip, Slade stumbles backward and regards his hand with surprise. The glove has been stripped away, leaving the finger bones fully exposed. A thundering backhand knocks him into the doors and bounces him to the ground; pan from him to the guard.)

Guard: Your days have long since ended, mortal. Time to lie down with the rest of the mortals.

(He closes in; the black/red-orange head comes up, revealing a red crack in the steel on its left side.)

Slade: You first!

(He leaps up to perch on the door handles and pushes away as the sentry approaches; the move carries him behind, and he nimbly dodges the poleaxe swing that comes his way. His counterattack, a flying kick, slams into the guard and leaves him staggering back toward the doors. The head comes up to reveal a hole broken in the helmet, exposing the glaring left eye, and the camera pans to the poleaxe head as he warms it up again. Slade dodges two vicious swings but is hit in the gut by a third. He reels back, finds a hole smashed through his armor to expose the ribs on his left side, and collapses on his face.)

Guard: You cannot hope to defeat pure evil. (Close-up of Slade.)

Slade: Actually, I'm not such a nice guy myself.

(Pan to a close-up of his right hand on the end of this line. It grips a remote control, which he activates, and the camera cuts to a close-up of the guard. His back is to the doors, but a beeping from nearby makes him turn in surprise. We can now see a flashing device attached to the surface, responding to the signal from the remote-small, round, marked with Slade's stylized S. Zoom in on it in two steps as it flashes more quickly, ending with an extreme close-up, then pull back just in time for it to detonate, throwing the guard off his feet.)

(Back to Slade, who has stood up and is shielding his face from the dust and debris. An intense glare washes over him from the doors' direction, and a cut to behind him reveals that they have been blown apart, with brilliant white light shining beyond. Beams shoot out in all directions; one of them collides with Slade, lifting him clear of the ground and bathing him in its radiance. Extreme close-up of the exposed skeletal left hand, seen in silhouette; slowly but surely, the fingers begin to thicken before the view fades to white.)

(Fade in to a screen full of smoke, which clears to show Slade standing on his own two feet. The damaged hand and ribs have once again been covered with armor, and his mask has restored itself. He takes a deep breath.)

Slade: Ahhh. (working left fingers) My own flesh and blood.

(Glancing off to one side, he spots the guard's double-headed weapon lying at his feet, and the empty, smoking helmet a short distance away. No other sign of the foe can be seen as the masked victor picks up the barbaric device.)

Slade: Don't get up. I'll let myself out.

(He lifts the weapon, its poleaxe head flaring up, and heads for the stairs that led him down to this place. Tilt up into the cavern's lightless reaches, then to the ravaged streets of Jump City. Robin grappling hooks overhead, followed by Starfire giving Cyborg a lift, followed by the mob of flaming specters Trigon let loose. The high-octane, low-altitude chase flashes down the block.)

Cyborg: Screech all you want! (breaking out/firing cannon) We're not going down without a fight!

(His shots disintegrate several of the pursuers, but their sheer numbers prove too much and all three Titans are swept out of the air.)

(They do exactly that and hit the broken pavement very hard. As they try to clear their heads, the murderous horde dives on them. Cyborg and Starfire uncork a double fusillade that brings down a few of them, but the others sweep on through the remains. What comes next is a close-up of lightning bolts smacking the 325-foot Trigon around and makes him drop to his knees. It appears to be Beast Boy that was doing it. He shows up in front of the trio of the Titans looking at Trigon and lets out a thunderous roar that echoes throughout the devistated city.)

Starfire: (from o.c.) Beast Boy!

Robin: (as all three race to him) You're alive!

Beast: And I didn't come alone.

(Cut to him pulling back is dark robe and tilt down toward his feet, where Raven has caught hold of his leg for support. Both are indeed in proper shape, having successfully completed the last stage of their climb back to the surface. Close-up of the youngster's face; she is shaking slightly.)

Cyborg: (from o.c., flabbergasted) Raven...

(Dissolve to a stretch of the shore, the camera pointing out over Jump City Bay. Lightning crackles here and there during a pan to the Tower; dissolve to a close-up of the blasted structure, against which Trigon is leaning to rest. Another strike, and the camera has moved even closer; the next flash leads to a very clear view of his composed face and its four closed eyes. Finally he straightens up, another lightning bolt outlining him with a lurid red glare, and wakes up from his nap. The right hand is lifted and the little finger extended to slice a ragged gash in the clouds, exposing the starry blue-black of outer space beyond. Extreme close-up of his mouth in profile.)

Trigon: Go forth and conquer! (Pull back slowly; fire demons fly up as he continues.) One by one, worlds shall fall, until every being in this entire dimension bows down to worship Trigon the Terrible!

(On the latter part of this line, cut to a patch of lava and tilt back up to frame him as the troops swarm out through the rent in the clouds. When they have all gone, it seals itself and lightning cracks down behind him. The glare of this strike clears to show a close-up of Raven, huddling behind a fallen slab as the camera pulls back slowly. The four reunited Titans come into view during this shift.)

Cyborg: So her powers are gone? (Long shot.) She really can't help us? (Close-up of him and Starfire.)'Least we still got that ring of Azar so Trigon can't...

(The optimistic thought dies on his lips when Starfire holds it up-shattered-on her palm.)

Cyborg: Oh, crud.

(She lets the pieces drop; pull back to frame Robin and Cyborg.)

Robin: This is it. One final attack. Him or us. (Cut to the other three teens; he continues o.c.) All or nothing.

(Their faces harden into the sort of steely resolve that would have made George S. Patton very proud indeed. Raven, on the other hand, begins to flee only to be stopped by Beast; he kneels and puts his hands on her shoulders.)

Beast Boy: This is your story, Raven. And I'm not sure what happens next. (Close-up of her; he continues o.c.) I know it seems hopeless- (Cut to him.) -but I believe that when the time is right- (Pull back to frame all five.) -you will know what to do.

(The very large stone behind the team is plucked away by the conqueror, who aims a contemptuous little sneer their way.)

Trigon: What strange vermin cower beneath my rocks?

Robin: Now!

(Four fluid motions put Beast Boy and Starfire in the air-the former turning into a hawk-and Robin and Cyborg on the jump-the former of these bringing his staff to the ready. Raven is left staring confusedly up after them.)

Trigon: I have endured your existence long enough.

(All four heroes soar toward the massive scarlet form only to be stopped in their tracks by a quadruple eye blast. Cut to a close-up of Robin, almost totally hidden within a sphere of its crackling energy, and pull back to frame the group as all yell and groan in pain. They are now floating right in front of Trigon, who lifts a palm underneath the captives as if preparing to deliver the king daddy of volleyball serves. His daughter takes a few timid steps to get a better view and make sure her eyes are not deceiving her.)

Trigon: Your world is ended! Your time is-

(Two simultaneous occurrences combine to cut off that sentence. The first is a cloud-ripping stroke of lightning; the second is a primal yell from Slade, who sails into view over Trigon's head from behind, warms up his stolen weapon, and delivers a superhuman swing. A huge flash marks its impact, after which the camera pulls back to a longer shot of the area. Slade hurtles past Trigon's face, the newly severed left antler tumbling away like so much deadwood, as the Titans begin to descend. The demon roars in pain and claps a hand to the stump; finally Slade touches down, the antler only a moment behind. Not long after this, the four Titans hit the pavement, Beast Boy now a tiger and Starfire ready to let her hands do the talking.)

Robin: Titans! GO!

Act Three

(Opening shot: the Titans going full tilt, with Cyborg and Starfire blasting merrily away. After a second or two of their combined assault, Trigon slams his palm on the ground, producing an earthquake that throws the quartet in all directions. While Robin and Cyborg end up near a pile of wreckage, Starfire has remained airborne and now continues the shootout by herself. Trigon retaliates with a wide-angle eye blast; he hits nothing but is momentarily distracted by her flying and Cyborg's fresh cannon shot. This leaves his back wide open for Beast Boy to slip around, become a pterodactyl to fly up, then quick-change to a T-rex and chomp deep into one ear. As the monster screams in fresh agony, Cyborg gets to his feet and fires a shot that strikes him square in the chest; Beast Boy leaps away, turning into a hawk, just in time to avoid taking the hit as well.)

(He flies past Robin on his way out. The Boy Wonder has been out of action since the four were blasted down, but now he races along the crumbled rooftops and goes into an impossibly long, high leap with staff in hand. His trajectory carries him dangerously close to the four eyes that are warming up for another burst; as he sails past, he whips a disc smack into them. The enemy is left blinded by the thick crust of ice it throws out upon impact, and he stumbles randomly backward while Robin drops away and Starfire zips across to catch him.)

(The Titans' combined onslaught now has Trigon howling with combined rage and pain and scrambling desperately to fend them off. Robin's freeze disc has left him unable to see or return fire, and Raven takes in the spectacle with what can only be described as total shock.)

* Raven: (softly) I don't believe it.

(Beast Boy, back in human form, and Cyborg now stand side by side; the former transforms into a stegosaurus, and the latter grabs him by the tail and heaves him down the street. The throw bangs right into Trigon's face, shattering the ice over his eyes and staggering him badly, and Beast Boy becomes a pterodactyl so he can fly away safely. The demon falls to his knees.)

* Raven: They're...hurting him!

(Here comes Slade, double blade gripped firmly in both hands, to stare his former master dead in the face.)

Slade: For the record, I'm nobody's servant.

(A fierce yell accompanies his throw, which neatly chops off Trigon's right antler and leaves him staggering back toward the shore of Jump City Bay. One foot splashes into the lava; here come the five unlikeliest of partners to regroup, Beast Boy resuming human form and Slade perched on a rock. Trigon growls and cowers before them, both hands over the stubs of his amputated antlers, for some moments before finding his voice.)

Trigon: ENOUGH!

(He lets go with a cataclysmic eye blast that hits only Slade and hurls him down the block past Raven; only an upturned slab of pavement stops him from going into the next county. Beast Boy is flown into the other side of the city.)

* Raven: No!

(

* Raven: (sobbing) Get up! Please! Get up!

(Close-up of him during this line, then pull back as Trigon's thundering footsteps approach and his shadow throws itself over the two.)

Trigon: Farewell, dear daughter.

(He warms up his eyes and sends an infernal blast down toward her, intending to cut the family ties once and for all. The screen goes white when it hits the ground-and then clears to show her still in one piece, huddled beneath a hemispherical, translucent white shield. The energy for it is flowing from her hand; it promptly retracts into the gray fingers as she stares at them, absolutely confounded.)

* Raven: How...?

Trigon: You may have retained some trace of my power, but you are still no threat to me, little girl. I am your creator, your master. (Overhead view behind him, zooming toward the Titans.) You exist only to serve me. You survive only because I allow it.

(Close-up of Robin; Raven, still slumped over him, hangs her head in utter dejection and closes her eyes.)

Trigon: (from o.c.) What hope can a mere child have of defeating her all-powerful father?

(The thin eyebrows on either side of the gem set in Raven's forehead suddenly lower as he mouth twists down into a grimace of the purest anger. Finally making up her mind after a long hesitation, she opens her eyes to stare her father full on. White light pours from the sockets, the same that emerged during the flashback of Trigon's arrival in the prologue.)

* Raven: (standing up, light shining around head) You may have created me...

(The halo expands to fill the entire screen and subsides to give an overhead shot of the shoreline. As Trigon backs up a bit in genuine fear, the blinding sphere grows again and detonates in a terrific flash. When the view clears, the camera has cut to a close-up of her feet-but the style of the white boots has changed to match those worn by Raven at her normal age. Tilt up to frame all of her; she is now fully herself again, but her hair has grown out very long as it did in the climax of "Birthmark." The white light from her eyes has shifted to her hands.)

Raven: ...but you were never my father.

(Without even a trace of effort, she puts her hands together and fires a broad beam directly into Trigon's solar plexus, driving him back toward the shore. Ground level: Robin begins to pry himself up from the pavement, and the others do likewise as Raven's feet pound past them. Slow pan across the four, now getting to their feet and thoroughly perplexed, then pull back to frame the six combatants in an overhead shot. Trigon has turned away from the reunited Titans, but now swivels to face the approaching Raven with a look of the clearest hate.)

Trigon: Wretched, insignificant-

(She blasts him back again and continues forward, steadily, unstoppably, shooing after each sentence in the following line.)

Raven: Fathers are kind! Fathers protect you! Fathers raise you!

(The last shot leaves him immobilized and straining against the crackling energy that has begun to run up and down his body. Close-up of her.)

Raven: I was protected by the monks of Azarath. (Pull back; the other Titans are behind her.) I was raised by my friends.

(He screams and drops to his knees. Now the same power is coursing through her as well as the others gather closer.)

Raven: They are my family. (It spreads briefly to them...) This is my home. (...then retracts back to her.) And you are not welcome here!

(She rises into the air on the end of this line, the camera tilting up to follow her as white bolts flash down from her spread arms and her gem flares the same color.)

Raven: Azarath Metrion Zinthos!

(The light fills the screen and forms into her "soul self"-pure white rather than black-rearing up in Trigon's face and growing so large that it dwarfs even him. He is slowly and steadily swallowed up by the blinding radiance, finally voicing a scream more agonized that any he has ever been able to force from the throats of his victims. The light forms into a wide column that rapidly spreads outward over the city and the Titans-and when it clears away, the urban center has been restored to its proper, un-ravaged condition. Clear blue sky, buildings and streets as they should be, the team's favorite pizza joint standing in all its angular glory behind them.)

(The wave passes elsewhere in the city, reviving the petrified bystanders Robin found early in Part Two, and one final burst restores the bay and the Tower. Now all of Jump City is back together, and no trace of Trigon or Raven's white "soul self" is present over the skyline. As in Part One,

Act One, it is a beautiful day.)

(Cut to Raven, still in midair and ringed by that brilliant white corona; tilt down to follow her descent as it fades away. Each speaker moves up in turn.)

Starfire: Raven...that was...

Cyborg: ...unbelievable.

Raven: No. (smiling) It wasn't.

Robin: Well we were right. We did it.

(Then an EarthQuake occurs as buildings start to crumble as a large body begins to rise out of the floor. The people of the city start running for their lives. The giant body is Trigon. He wasn't destroyed, intead was transported with the rest of the titans.)

Trigon: I said your powers are not strong enough to destroy me.

( The citizenz of the city began to run for their lives as the titans remain to fight the demon that was coming for them. On the other side of the city inside a warehouse lays unconscious Beast Boy from being launched by Trigon. He begins to open his eyes to see around him and hears a bottle drop right next to him. He looks to see the bottle that Slade had given him(; in part 2;). Beast Boy grabs it and proceeds to remove his gloves and crushes it to let the liquid enter into his blood stream. after that's done, Beast Boy begins to feel an urge that he never felt before. His entire body was gaining something beyond his comprehension. He started to change; morphing into something that he never become. His hand where he crushed the bottle was becoming a reptilian like hand. Long claws, curved hard scales on his skin and is growing in size. Cuts to his head where scales start showing on his neck shoulders, and face. His mouth stretches out with sharp teeth. His back enlarges with large spike appear running up and down his spine as well as a tail growing with more spikes running from the tip of the tail and all the way up to his head. He started to grow very large at a very fast rate.)

(Back in the city Trigon is obliterating everything in his path as the people in Jump City scury for their lives and the four Titans fend him off. They try everything they can but nothing seems to work.)

Robin: (At Raven) Is there anything that will destroy him!?

Raven: I don't know. He should have been gone when I had my power full.

Cyborg: We're gonna need something big to take him down.

(Just as he finished saying that, an explosion erupted from across the city. There was a giant wall of dust, smoke, and fire. Out of the smoke come out a giant hand. Unlike any hand they've seen except out of a giant monster movie. The hand smashed into a building and the other hand slammed into the building next to it Then begins to shove the buildings down. The smoke and dust clear as it reveals what Beast Boy has become. Three hundred and fifty feet tall, two hundred and forty-five feet long, giant dorsal spines.)

Cyborg: What is that?

Starfire: It is not like anything I've ever seen.

Slade:(From on top a building) It's Logan.

All four Titans: Beast Boy?!

(Oh it was more than just Beast Boy. The bottle that Slade gave him was cells of a creature that lived many years ago. A giant amongst monsters. The King of all Monsters. Godzilla.)

(Trigon had a worried look on his face because now there seems to be something that can stop him. 150,000 tons of Beast Godzilla.)

(Beast critiques himself looking at what he become. After observing, he turned his attention to Trigon who was dead center on his view. He let out an extremely powerful roar that echoed all over the city that it could probably be heard all across the entire planet.)

(Trigon charged for Beast Boy as Beast Godzilla countered by ducking and lifting Trigon into a big back body drop. Trigon would recover and continue to charge at the giant lizard as BeastGodzilla grabbed the Red Demon and tossed him into a stack of buildings which would crumble and burry Trigon. This Beast to grab Trigon and drag him around, scrapping the demon's torso across into more buildings. BeastGodzilla proceeded to smack Trigon with his enormous tail wounding Raven's father. Trigon would gain an opportunity by grabbing Beast's tail and swing him around into even more of downtown. The being of all evil picked-up Beast Boy-Godzilla slamming him down and would repeat the process several times. He would then grab Beast one last time and throw him into a skyscraper as it crumbled down on-top of Beast-Godzilla. Trigon then unleashed his laser eye beams at him causing an explosion that rocked the Earth. Trigon would go to attempt it again until a building covered in a black power, slammed into him knocking him down to one knee. He turns to see his daughter with the rest of her friends there to confront him.)

Raven: You can't win this, just surrender. You don't rule this world anymore.

Trigon: I may not rule this world but I will redestroy it and start from scratch if I have to starting by ridding of you that is what I will do.

(He punches towards then until both Raven and Starfire build fields around them to shield the team from him but Trigon's might break through. Robin threw his freeze bombs into Trigons face, blinding the demon. Trigon released his eye beams to melt the ice from his eyes and towards them as they moved out of the way but felt the blast as they are launched into the debree. As they lay there in pain, Trigon has fire in his eyes ready to blast until arms wrapped around Trigon's waist and is given a German suplex. It was Beast-Godzilla back from the building trapping him.)

(Beast-Zilla pulled up Trigon and kneed him in the head, knocking the demon down. It repeatedly kneed the head of Trigon and stomped a mud hole on the demon. It changed when Trigon grabbed the foot of the beast and pushes it back as Beast-Zilla as it falls back. The Red monster grabbed sharp objects that were from the building. As the two got up, Godzilla ran up to Trigon but the red monster elbowed Beast-Zilla right in the chest, right in the heart area stopping Beast in his place. Trigon, with the sharp objects in his hands, with all his might drives it into the heart of Beast-Zilla. The Beast roars out in pain and agony echoing for miles as Trigon pushes it farther in. The rest of the Titans look in fear as their teammate is possibly dying. Trigon tasted victory but felt something else. Something getting really hot. He looks to see the spines on the back of Godzilla/Beast Boy, glowing a red color and getting brighter with each second. Then its eyes began glowing as well as its mouth. Then a giant ray of atomic fire blows out of Godzilla's mouth hitting Trigon in the face as he yelled from the force of the blast. The atomic breath was so powerful that the light from the fire that the entire city was looking like a red dot on the planet.)

Robin: Everyone run! (He ordered as the titans fled from the area. They get to cover far away from the two behemoths as the final moments of the atomic blast from Godzilla erupted causing a massive explosion that goes as far, destroying almost half the entire city.)

(The dust settles; devastation engulfs Jump City. The Titans get out of the rubble and look around to see devastation all around them. Almost nothing remains of downtown. It looks as if a nuclear bomb had just hit the city. The four of them look to see where the two monsters were before and see nothing of where they stood. All that was left was a giant crater in the center of the city.)

(They look all over the place and see nothing remaining from Beast Boy, all that is left in the crater was a piece the dorsal spines of Beastboy. It was at that moment that the world weighed in on them that Beastboy was gone. The belief of Beast being dead was inevitable. Their world just collapsed on the team's shoulders. Raven falls to her knees, with tears in her eyes cries that she just lost the one that cared them most for her and even loved her with all his heart. Cyborg falls and sits down with a tear in his eye just losing his best friend. Robin devastated that he lost not just his team mate but a great friend. He didn't know what to feel as Starfire cried tremendously hugging him and tearing up his shoulder. The last shot is of them in the middle of the crater weeping at the death of Beastboy as it zooms out and dissipates.)

(Cut to days later as the city is rebuilding with thousands of workers trying to fix the mess left by the two monsters. It would then cut to a cemetery where a memorial is being held for Beast boy as every Titan from around the globe that knew Beastboy was there. The team all speak of their feelings of their fallen team member.)

(Everyone comes together as they offer flowers and gifts to the fallen comrade. The final ones to leave were the teen titans as they shed their final goodbyes to their best friend. They all walk off together and head back to the tower and each of them head to their rooms as they need to sink in the feeling of the loss of their teammate and most importantly best friend.)

(The scene fades to night time back to Beastboy's grave as a figure is standing there staring at the tombstone. The figure was Deathstroke. He continuously looking at the grave as he bends down and puts Logan's childhood toy, a green stuffed dinosaur.)

Slade: Goodbye, my son. (As he stands up and walks away as it focuses on the tombstone.)

(The scene dissolves into the bottom of the ocean as the shot pans through an army of fish as we see a giant creature in laying on the ocean floor. We have a close up of what it is Godzilla. It lays motionless as we see it is immobile until we see it's hand twitch.)


End file.
